16. Vera
Vera
The six-day journey from Saltmourne to Shipwreck Cove had mostly fair weather, although we hit a rough patch where the water threatened to pull us off course and into choppy waves. I didn’t even have to look at the map to know it had been in the same area where we’d encountered the whirlpool.
I shared a knowing look with Odessa, who Starke had asked to come this time. She spent most of her adolescence sailing around the Triad Realm, so even though she was content with her books, she was also more well-traveled than most of us.
Other than that small incident, there had been no whirlpool, no sudden storms, no mysterious, hidden creature.
And now the mist thinned to reveal the Blackwake Territories, a sprawl of craggy black islands.
Starke told me they were remnants of old volcanoes and reefs, strung together by crooked piers, dilapidated docks, and bridges made by the Fates only knew what scavenged materials.
Shipwreck Cove was the nearest of the group of islands.
The air was thicker here. It smelled like salt mixed with smoke and iron.
Lanterns flickered along the docks in the fading sunlight and cast reflections on the water as we bobbed closer.
Pirates loitered everywhere, perusing goods, sharpening daggers, and drinking from dirty canteens.
In the distance, I could’ve sworn I heard cannon fire ringing across the island.
The Blackwake Territories were the one place I hadn’t yet visited, and it thrummed with a dangerous, impulsive energy that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
Passing over the dark fog of the docks, my eyes found a little pocket of shoreline with tan sand, a few green trees, and white-foamed water lapping at the beach.
Every time I arrived on a new beach in the Triad Realm, old memories swam to the surface.
“The best part is standing there right when the water rushes over your ankles. It’s cold at first, but then it feels good. The sun always warms it up. And then you just look out to the ocean. The waves go on forever, straight into the sky.”
Everett’s words coasted over me like smoke from the deckhands below. It had been seven years since that moment, but every beach I saw never failed to make me think of it.
I took a deep breath and nearly choked on smog.
Men readied the gangway for us, with torn hats on their heads, pipes between their lips, and rusted daggers strapped to their waists.
Odessa stuck close to my side, adjusting her spectacles with wide-eyed wonder.
Passersby and sailors alike finally seemed to notice us as we descended to the grimy dock, but it wasn’t Odessa or me they paid attention to.
It was Starke.
A pair of pirates with gold teeth nudged each other’s shoulders. Someone else whistled, his tricorn so low, it blocked his face. An older man leaning against a broken post straightened and squinted at Starke. “By the Fates,” he muttered, stroking his braided beard.
I glanced back at Starke. “What’s that about?”
“No idea.” His face was unreadable as he stepped around Odessa and me to take the lead. “Keep moving.”
Karye, Lenny, and the other crewmembers stayed back on the ship.
My shoes crunched over wood chips and broken glass as we walked.
The stares of strangers burned holes in my back, but I ignored them and kept following Starke.
We’d almost made it out of the port when a gray-haired man with a fish’s eye strung to a necklace came out of nowhere.
He clapped Starke on the shoulder, giving him a one-toothed smile.
“Well, if it ain’t little Alexander,” the man croaked. Starke stiffened, and I shot him a sharp glance. He knew these people?
“Didn’t think we’d see you ‘round here again.” The man picked something out of his tooth. “We’ve missed you and yer old man. How’s he doin’ these days?”
Starke’s face was still a mask, but he ran his fingers through his blond hair—the only tell that he was anxious. “Gone,” he answered gruffly.
The man’s face sagged. “Sorry to hear that. He was one o’ the good ones.”
Starke acknowledged him with a single, curt nod. “Come on,” he said, gripping mine and Odessa’s shoulders and pushing us forward.
“Wait, did you used to live here?” I whispered. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Have you seen this place, V?” We entered a busy street, weaving between mismatched stalls of questionable food and drifting smoke. “My father only ever wanted to get us out of here. He wanted a better life for me and my brothers.”
I swallowed hard. “Well, I’m sorry for your loss, Starke.”
He avoided my gaze and surged ahead into a nearby tavern. I read the faded words “Dead Man’s Chest” scribbled above the door as he, Odessa, and I crowded into the bar.
“You want to find Mortep?” Starke inclined his head to the patrons. “This is the best place to ask.”
The inside of the tavern looked like a rotting ship.
The ground was slick with what I sincerely hoped was just water.
Ropes and dried seaweed hung from the ceiling like some kind of themed decor.
Wheels, compasses, and old sails were affixed to the decayed wooden walls, and the entire place smelled like stale ale and salt.
Men and women alike turned to stare when we entered, giving us a quick once-over before their gazes landed on Starke.
Like the others, their eyes widened in recognition.
A bartender plopped three glasses on the bar next to a group of pirates, then wiped his hands on his stained apron. “Can I help you?” he asked us.
I stepped forward and pulled a couple of silver coins from the pocket of my leather jacket, laying them on the wooden bar. “Three ales.”
As he nodded and got to work, I looked around the tavern. A fight broke out between two men on the opposite side. Fists swung and glasses shattered on the ground as their companions pulled them off each other, shouting curses. Hardly anyone else batted an eye.
I glanced at the pirates beside me. Two women and a man, all with black tricorns and daggers adorning their vests.
The woman nearest me had thick black kohl lining her eyes and wore a gold chain with a pirate’s crest of a skull around her neck.
She caught me staring and quirked a thick eyebrow. “See something you like?”
“Your crest is beautiful.” I nodded to the chain.
“Thanks.” She stuck out a hand for me to shake. “Name’s Knight. Captain Knight.”
I nodded. “Vera. And this is Odessa and—”
“I know who he is.” Knight smirked at Starke, eyes lingering on him. “We go way back, don’t we, Alexander?”
It was strange to hear him referred to by his first name, but he clearly had a past here that I knew nothing about.
“Well, we’re looking for someone,” I said.
“A man. He may have come through here recently. Tall, pale, thick black hair. Blind,” I added, remembering how Everett had torn out Mortep’s eyes during the battle last year.
Malek Mortep was one of few Veridians born with two magic types: Alchemy and illusions. And as everyone who grew up around Illusionists knew, their biggest weakness was their eyes. Without sight, they couldn’t cast their illusions.
“Blind, eh?” Knight’s male companion leaned forward. He wore a leather eyepatch over one eye, and he lifted it to reveal a glass ball in the socket. “If that’s what you’re looking for, darlin’, come on over here and I’ll show you a good time.”
Starke stepped forward, his frame more hulking in the low lights of the tavern. “She’s not interested,” he growled.
I ignored them and kept my attention on Knight. “Have you seen anyone who fits that description around here?”
She ran a finger along her lips, playing with a small ring at the corner. “Maybe. We get lots of strange types around here.”
“I can make it worth your while,” I said. I lifted one side of my jacket to expose a heavy bag of coins.
Knight let out a rumble of laughter. “Oh, honey, I’m sure you could, but it doesn’t matter what else you’ve got under those clothes. I’m not the one to ask.” She dipped her hat toward a corner of the pub completely shrouded in smoke. “Talk to ol’ Sommers. He knows everything Blackwake.”
My gaze raked over the corner to a hidden silhouette. In my silence, Odessa stepped forward, ever the polite one. “Thank you for the help, ma’am.”
Knight chuckled. Before I walked off, she gripped my wrist, nails digging into skin.
“Watch your back, honey,” she whispered.
“Those pretty blue eyes will get you every time.” She spoke to me, but her gaze was fixed on Starke.
She released me and shot him a threatening, seductive smile, then went back to her ale as if nothing had happened.
“What did she say?” Starke asked, forehead pinching.
“Nothing. Just that we need to talk to someone named Sommers.” I shook off her strange words and gestured to the corner, where the fog cleared enough to see a small table with a hunched man sitting in a chair.
“Oh, Fates,” Starke mumbled.
“You know him?”
“Everyone knows Sommers.” He sighed. “Just take everything he says with a grain of salt, alright? He’s a bit…”
“Crazy?” I guessed.
“Eccentric. He once thought ghosts of his late wife’s cats were haunting him. He hid in the garbage for a week to get away from them.”
“Well, were they?” I asked.
“Were they what?”
“Were the cats haunting him?”
Starke rolled his eyes, and I smirked. “If imagining cats is the worst of it, he seems harmless.” I shrugged and squeezed my way between the patrons.
“Did I mention he’s the one who killed his wife? With a dinner fork?”
I paused. “Then just make sure he doesn’t have a fork on him.”
I approached the hunchbacked figure, wading through the haze of alcohol until I could see his face.
Wrinkles lined his tan skin, his features sagging with age and too much time in the sun.
Patches of brown and gray hair spotted his balding head.
The smallest dagger I’d ever seen was propped behind one ear, and he was using another to clean his teeth.
When our shadows fell across the table, he looked up. His eyes met Starke’s, and a smile slipped over his cracked lips. “Wondered when we’d be seeing you again, boy. Been what, almost a year?”
“Not here for business. Just looking for someone,” Starke responded stiffly.
“Aren’t we all?” Sommers tapped the tip of the dagger against his teeth. “Sure do miss seeing that pretty mother of yours ‘round here. Those little boys, too. Shame what happened to ‘em.”
Starke’s jaw clenched. “You owe me, Sommers. Help me with this, and we’ll be square.”
“Ah, so you are here for business.” Sommers leaned back in his chair and spread his arms out wide. “By all means, let’s see what ol’ Sommers can do for you.”
“We’re looking for someone,” Starke said. “We think he’s been around Shipwreck Cove recently. Goes by the name Mortep.”
“He’s tall and pale, with big, black hair,” I added. “He’s also blind and is probably traveling alone.”
Sommer’s eyes scanned me, a stormy blue that reminded me of the whirlpool. They went in and out of focus as he let out a breath reeking of alcohol. My confidence in getting an answer out of the man dropped with each passing second.
Until he said, “Yeah, I’ve seen ‘im.”
I jolted forward. “You have? Where?”
A drunken smile pulled his lips wider. He lazily twirled his dagger on the table, gaze landing on the open buttons at the top of my tunic. “How badly do you wanna know, darlin’?”
Starke moved forward, but I beat him to it. I whisked the dagger from Sommer’s grip and slammed the tip into the wooden tabletop between his fingers. “How badly do you wanna keep these fingers?” I hissed, raising an eyebrow.
He scrambled back into his seat. “Fates, woman! You’ve got better aim than half the pirates here.”
“What are you talking about?” I yanked the dagger out of the table. “I missed.”
His eyes widened. “Alright, alright. You wanna know about your man? He’s been here a few times.” He warily eyed the dagger still in my hand. “Comes through looking for followers.”
My fingers twitched around the handle, pulse racing with this revelation. Someone here had actually seen him. “What do you mean, followers?”
“He spouts some hogwash about a better future, tellin’ people they can be ‘elevated beyond this life,’” Sommers mimicked, doing a frighteningly accurate imitation of Mortep. “And people say I’m crazy.”
Starke and I shared a look. That was the first I’d heard of Mortep trying to gather people to his side. But what for? To ‘elevate beyond this life’? What did that even mean?
“When was the last time you saw him?” I pressed.
Sommers paused, taking another long drag of ale before slamming it down. Brown liquid sloshed over the top and landed on the table. “Three weeks, maybe. Took another group of people ‘n disappeared.”
“He took them?” Odessa asked with a gasp.
“Well, it was their choice. He gives his pretty speeches and people flock to him like birds.” Sommers took his other knife and spun the blade on the wooden tabletop. “We never see ‘em again.”
Three weeks ago. Probably the same time he foraged the Twin Tides burial ground. I just barely missed him, again.
“How often does he come back?” I asked.
“Depends. Sometimes a couple months.” A demented grin flashed on his features. “Once he’s plucked all his little birds and needs more, I reckon.”
Ice crept through my veins. Little bird. Mortep’s voice caressed my mind, freezing me.
Starke jumped in, seeming to notice my momentary silence. “Do you know where he stays when he’s in town? Any other places he frequents?”
Sommers shook his head. He went back to picking his teeth with his fingernail. “Never seen ‘im in the same place for long. That’s all I’ve got for you. Consider us square.”
Starke’s nose twitched. “Fine. Thanks, Sommers.”
The three of us stepped away, my thoughts churning and questions rising, when Sommer’s scratchy voice caught my attention again.
“The eternal flame,” he threw at us. I whirled around, forehead pinching.
“I just remembered. That’s what your man was always going on about.
Lighting the eternal flame.” He pointed his dagger at Starke. “Now you owe me, boy.”
“The eternal flame?” I shook my head. “What does that mean?”
The man shrugged, but to my surprise, Odessa’s face went ashen. “It can’t be,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
My heartbeat quickened. “Odessa, what’s wrong?”
She gripped my arm, fingers as cold as ice. “I—I think I know what it means. I know what Mortep is looking for.”