8. Vera
Vera
We were deep in the heart of the Imarian Sea, and the sky turned from a soft blue to a mix of navy, orange, and yellow. A lone sea bird circled low near the mast. I watched its feathers extend wide, and the motion brushed my heart with deep, quiet yearning.
“Thought you might want this,” Starke said, coming up behind me with a steaming wooden mug. Behind his tricorn and long hair, a stack of storm clouds gathered in the distance.
I eyed the mug. “I’m guessing that’s not rum.”
“Close. It’s chamomile tea.” He handed it to me, and I raised an eyebrow as I wrapped my hands around the warm cup. He shrugged and said, “Odessa got me hooked on the stuff. It helps me sleep, and she says it’s better for me than rum.”
“Well, we don’t drink it for our health.” I lifted the mug in mock cheers, then took a sip. The scorching liquid nearly scalded my tongue. I coughed it down with a gasp. “Fates, that’s hot.”
“Yes, I thought the steam would have clued you in.”
“I can’t taste anything now,” I mumbled, sipping it more slowly. My tongue felt like it had been burned off, but the warmth was comforting as it slid down my throat. “Thanks, Starke.”
He tipped his hat in response. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but before he got the chance, the ship lurched and knocked us both into the railing.
I lost my grip on the mug, and it flew into the sea below.
The ship rose and fell on choppy waves, the storm clouds now dark and menacing against the bloodred sunset.
“Strike the royals,” Starke turned and commanded the crew. “We need to stabilize her. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
The crew scattered. Wind slapped against the mainsail, tangling the lines as men rushed to the mast. I leaned into the breeze with a deep breath, and my nose twitched. The wind smelled wrong—sharp and heavy, with a musty tint.
“Storm came out of nowhere,” Lenny, the helmsman, muttered behind me. I turned to see his white-knuckled grip on the wheel.
“Aww, Lenny. Scared of a little rain?” I quipped.
The first hint of trouble always made something dark and excited unfurl beneath my ribs.
One would think after twenty years of constant danger I’d want a lifetime of peace ahead of me, but there was an instinct inside that made me need the fear.
Starke thought I was reckless. He said I gave him weekly heart attacks—picking fights at bars, diving headfirst into the Shattered Spine, all the times I chased Mortep without a thought for my own safety.
Maybe he had a point.
I closed my eyes and focused on the impending storm rustling the nerves in my gut. We hit a particularly bad swell, and water crashed onto the main deck. My boots skidded when I spun around, forcing me to grip the rail.
Starke stood at the helm with his arms crossed, jaw set, that blond hair yanked back in a messy leather tie. “Reef the mainsail,” he called to the crew, and there was a chorus of “ayes.”
Over my shoulder, the wind whipped the sea into a frenzy.
It was getting more difficult to see into the distance, but something caught my eye.
The waves to the north looked strange, almost as if they were crashing in on each other.
I leaned forward so my head stuck out the side.
They weren’t crashing, more like circling—
“Vera!” Starke barked. I jerked my head back to him. “Don’t get any smart ideas.”
“I don’t have any other kind,” I called out, earning me a glare.
“You should get below deck!”
“What?” I yelled, pointing to my ear as if I couldn’t hear him over the wind.
“Vera…” There was that warning tone of his. I gave him a sheepish shrug.
Lenny suddenly lurched forward into the wheel. “Somethin’s fighting me, Cap’n,” he bit out. His arms were rigid as he struggled against the wheel.
The floor trembled, and I grabbed the rail again to keep from falling. Starke and Lenny both lost their balance at the helm. When Lenny let go, the wheel spun faster, and the bow of the ship shifted north.
I sucked in a breath. The water ahead of us no longer churned with high waves. The sea flattened and then spiraled. A pale circle, then darker, deeper, the hole widening to show an endless abyss.
“Fates,” Starke cursed.
The air thrummed in time to my pounding pulse. Crewmembers shouted around me, the entire ship thrown into chaos at the sight of the whirlpool.
Starke leaped to help Lenny at the wheel, both men now drenched. The ship pitched forward again, and I barely avoided a barrel sliding across the deck.
“Secure the ship!” Starke roared from the helm. “We have to abandon course. We just need to get out of this.”
Rain pounded the waves. The crew's shouts grew more and more frantic by the second. I joined in to stow anything that could move as the water got even rougher.
Despite Starke and Lenny both pushing at the wheel, the ship continued to succumb to the pull of the whirlpool.
I couldn’t stop myself from pausing at the railing, eyes wide.
The sight was as incredible as it was terrifying.
The whirl stretched, and the sea around it sloped like a bowl.
The White Moonstone careened toward it as if the water had grown hands and was trying to drag us under.
I leaned forward, entranced by the motion.
I briefly wondered what it would feel like to let go. To swirl around and around until—
Behind me, lines snapped free.
“Vera, down!” Starke yelled.
I glanced up in time to see a horizontal pole flying through the air. It jammed into my midsection, sweeping me off my feet. Stars swam in my vision as I gasped and tried to wrap my arms around the boom, leaving my legs dangling precariously above the open waves.
More adrenaline rushed through me, along with a hint of hot, metallic fear. My vision came back to me in sharp clarity as I took in the oncoming threat. Water at the heart of the whirlpool yawned, exposing a cone of dark, churning waves.
And something—something moved.
My breaths came faster as I struggled to keep my grip on the boom. It was something long and scaled—no, not scaled—
Without warning, the boom jerked forward. Several men rushed to help as I came swinging back to the deck, the strange mirage in the water now gone.
Starke stood in the center of them all. “Are you alright?” he shouted, reaching to catch me as I untwined my arms from the pole and landed on my feet. He gripped my forearms, eyes scanning me.
I brushed out of his hold. “I’m fine. But there’s something out there.” I nodded my head toward the whirl. It grew closer, like a wide mouth with a sea of white, foamy teeth.
“Yes, a giant whirlpool,” Starke said exasperatedly.
I waved a hand. “No, something else. I saw—”
“Cap’n, we’re getting too close for comfort over here!” Lenny yelled from the helm in a cracked voice.
Starke strode past me, boots sloshing on the water-logged deck. He motioned to his first mate. “Can we anchor and wait it out?” he asked Karye.
“It’s too deep,” she said, shaking her head. It rattled the chains she wore around her neck. “We’re too far from shore.”
The three of us reached the helm to find a very sweaty, very anxious Lenny. He dabbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “I can’t hold her,” he sputtered. “She keeps wantin’ to fall into it.”
The compass on the binnacle spun around and around in its circle. I furrowed my brow as I stared at it. Something about it gave me an idea. A stupid, reckless idea.
“Then let her,” I said, dangerous excitement snaking through my veins.
Karye raised a dark eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Not fall into it,” I amended. “Fall around it. The rim of the whirlpool. We can ride it like a current and sort of…slingshot out.” I used my hands to demonstrate what I meant.
Starke scratched his neck. “And if it pulls us under instead?”
I gave him a grim smile. “Guess we better hold on tight.”
Karye shook her head in disbelief. “You’re going to get us killed, kid.”
She was probably right. The fact that this was the most alive I’d felt in months wasn’t a good sign either, but I could dwell on that later.
Starke eyed me, then sighed. I knew he was going to agree before he said anything. He always did. “Do it,” he said to Lenny.
Lenny gawked up at him. “What? That’s a terrible plan. We’re all gonna die.”
“Lenny,” Starke said, crossing his arms.
“Think of my children!” Lenny whined.
Starke squinted at him. “You don’t have any children.”
“Someday I might.” When the three of us glared at him, he threw his hands in the air. “Alright, fine!”
Starke gave the orders to the rest of the crew.
The sails shifted, and the White Moonstone shuddered.
Water raced faster than a raging river, and we moved with it, sliding toward the rim.
Another shape rose in the distance. It wavered in the darkness for a breath, something long and curved and shadowed, almost like a—
But it was gone a second later.
“Hold!” Starke shouted. “Hold!”
A wave slammed in the stern and exploded over the railing. Water blinded me. I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand and lost my footing. My head collided with a post by the wheel, making my vision go gray.
The whirl’s pull eased by a fraction. Not much, but enough. Wind whipped at us again, catching the sails. “Now!” Starke ordered. “Bring her up, Lenny!”
The helmsman yanked the wheel hard toward the wind, and the ship leaped. We tore away from the rim at an angle, still rocking precariously but no longer in the whirl’s clutches.
The White Moonstone groaned. A few lines were gone, some railings and boards broken, but other than that, we were intact. The rain clouds lightened enough to let the nearly-set sun peak through.
Starke moved toward me, gaze fixed on my head. “You’re bleeding.” He reached out a hand, and the pad of his thumb brushed over my wound.
My muscles went rigid. I didn’t usually let people touch me unless it was necessary. Any contact, friendly or not, sent alarms blaring through me, memories of too many rough hands and sharp needles swimming to the surface.
I recoiled and bumped into a pole again, and Starke jerked his hand back. “V, I—”
“I saw something,” I said. “In the water. It wasn’t just a whirlpool, Starke.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shook my head, and the cut at my temple pounded. “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It sounds crazy, but what if there’s something else out there?”
He gave me a knowing look. Too knowing. “It was just a storm.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t know that it wasn’t, and if this is another excuse for you to go running off after some red herring instead of—”
“I’m not making it up—”
“Don’t,” he said, voice sharp and final. “Don’t go searching for it, Vera.”
I averted my gaze. “Why would I go searching for the thing that almost killed us?”
“Because you always go searching.”
I paused, the silence heavy between us, full of things I knew he wanted to say. That I was careless. That my searches were leading us nowhere. That one of these days, I was going to get something worse than a cut to the head.
Instead, I gave him a mock salute and stepped away, pointing to my temple. “I better go take care of this, Captain.”
I made my way below deck. The heat of adrenaline faded with every step, replaced by a cold, bone-deep weariness that yearned for the kind of rest I didn’t think I’d ever find.