23. Everett
Everett
The next three days passed in a disappointing blur.
Sailing, arriving on Ash Serah, meeting their High Council, doing it all over again.
Under any other circumstance, I would’ve eagerly soaked up our time here.
The wealth of new knowledge, of sights, of peoples and cultures different from ours…
it was unlike anything I’d read in Veridian texts.
But my urgency and impatience was a constant itch beneath my skin, making me unable to hold on to any of it.
Thank the Fates for Kieran, who had slowly been recovering from his injuries and seemed to never tire of talking through legislation and terms of peace.
The people of Ash Serah were less welcoming than Chancellor Bay, but once they discovered our powers were dormant and we couldn’t use them to make a surprise attack, they were less wary.
After we dined on fresh fish and honey on our first evening there, I dared to ask about Vera with Ash Serah’s Chancellor Connell, a tall, lanky man of about fifty years old, with shiny piercings along the edges of both ears.
“Sir,” I began, “is there any chance you know of a woman living in this area? Her name is Vera Duma, about this tall”—I held out an arm to my chin—“with blonde hair and red streaks, perhaps working somewhere nearby?”
Chancellor Connell hummed, and his dark eyes crinkled in thought. “She doesn’t sound familiar. Why do you ask?”
I spared a glance at Kieran. “No reason in particular. Someone in Saltmourne was asking for her, and I thought I would help them look.”
“I know that name,” a new voice said. I whipped around to find a servant cleaning the table we’d eaten at.
“You do?” I pressed. “Do you know where she is?”
“No, sir,” the servant said. “I don’t think she’s from Ash Serah. I’ve seen her with a salvage crew at the port when they make deliveries. It’s been a couple months, though.”
“Thank you, Lydia, that will be all.” Connell dismissed her.
“What’s a salvage crew?” I asked him.
Connell shook his head and grumbled under his breath.
“Not much better than a pirate, if you ask me. They prey on shipwrecks to salvage any worthwhile goods, then sell them to the harbormasters. Or the highest bidder.” He raised a pierced eyebrow.
“If this girl you’re looking for is with one of them, you’ll probably find them cozying up to the nearest shipwreck, waiting to make their profit. ”
I mulled through the information all night, wondering if that servant really had seen Vera. Why would she have gotten wrapped up in a crew like that? This little morsel only left me desperate for more answers.
We spent a couple days voyaging up and down the enormous Ash Serah west coast under the guise of meeting all of their harbormasters.
The coastline itself was something straight out of a fantastical portrait.
Black volcanic rock carved by centuries of wind into jagged formations that dropped straight into the sea.
Narrow channels of turquoise water were threaded between them.
The harbormasters worked out of buildings built directly into the cliffside, with staircases cut into the rockface leading down to the sea.
Red and orange fishing nets hung between posts along the docks, bright against the black stone.
I caught myself cataloguing it all while I restlessly searched for signs of Vera and her salvage crew.
I thought I saw her everywhere. Any flash of blonde hair, any glint of sunlight, any birdsong flitting on the wind.
But that was all there was. Feelings and whispers, endless frustration around every corner.
We heard rumor after rumor of a strange girl and her captain appearing and disappearing every few months, almost like ghosts.
It was maddening, like trying to catch water with my bare hands, only to watch it trickle over the sides and drain away.
Just like that, we finished our trek through Ash Serah. Another blossom of hope withered and died with the prospect of leaving this island and heading to the third and final destination.
“You ready to go?” Tessa asked as she strapped her bag over her shoulder.
We stood on the dock of north Ash Serah, loading the Grand Dragon.
She and Kieran had been gentler with me over the last few days.
I caught them whispering when they thought I wasn’t looking, flashing me smiles full of pity and patting me on the back.
I didn’t want their pity. I wanted to find her. But as we looked out into the vast, endless waters of the Imarian Sea once more, that resolve was becoming harder and harder to keep.
We sailed west for Twin Tides, keeping an eye out for any strange anomalies.
Chancellor Bay said most of the disturbances took place in the center of the Imarian Sea, between all three of the island states.
The deadliest storm patterns and disappearances had been reported up north, close to a place called Shipwreck Cove.
Each afternoon, I would stand at the rail of the ship, watching the sea change from shimmering turquoise to deep blue as we moved farther from the island.
Two days went by, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The most we were met with was rough currents and a couple of small storms. But on the third day, the skies darkened dangerously.
A thick fog settled over the waves, making it impossible to see anything beyond the ship.
“Storm’s a-comin’,” Captain Rossa said next to me, pipe between his lips. The smoke rising from the end of it blended with the sinister fog, and a shiver crept down my spine.
“Captain! There’s been a sighting!” one of the crewmembers called.
We both jerked around. “What is it?” Rossa asked.
“A ship. On our bow.”
We strode to the front of the ship, squinting through the haze to see a large vessel. “How did it get so close without us knowing?” I called out.
“Fog’ll get yeh every time,” Rossa growled. “Hmm…friend or foe, friend or foe?” he hummed in a scratchy, sing-song voice, those keen, beady eyes surveying the water.
Not a moment later, a horn sounded from the opposing ship, vibrating through the waters.
“Return their salute,” Rossa told the nearby crewmember. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“Our horn is damaged, sir,” the crewmember informed Rossa, twisting his hat in his hands. “From the Shattered Spine.”
Rossa grunted. “Well, that’s a bit of a problem.”
A moment later, a blast erupted in the distance. My head snapped to the side just in time to see a black cannon ball barreling straight in front of us, barely missing the bowsprit.
Realization dawned on me, and I cursed. “They think we’re an enemy ship.”
“Load the cannons,” Rossa ordered. “This may get ugly.”