Chapter 41
Pale stone spires crowded in on every side like a petrified forest, the blue waves beneath the Kraken a stark contrast to the constant flickering of lightning as they left the Storm Ring further and further behind.
Zanta paused her skimming of Stroud’s journal to watch the Kraken pass under an arch of stone that barely cleared the top of the mainmast. It would have been near impossible to navigate these waters even in the more agile Monsoon or Siren, but they were stuck with the Kraken, a cannon instead of a bow.
At least they were afloat—that was more than could be said for either of the others right now.
Between the Demon and Rowan, however, they managed to find clear passage time and again as they picked their way toward the destination Zanta had read about.
They hadn’t seen another living soul apart from gulls and fish since they’d passed through the Storm Ring.
Wreckage floated everywhere, but there was no way to know if it belonged to the mercenaries, was pieces of the Monsoon that had broken off in the storm, or remained from some long ago tragedy.
If they were still being hunted, it would be almost impossible to spot another ship until it was right on top of them.
Even if the mercenaries had perished, Zanta knew now that they were not alone in the Sleeping Isles.
She’d spent the last few days doing nothing but scouring the sporadic entries in the journal for any detail that might help them find Nia, and learned that Nia was not the only one of her kind here.
These islands were home to a society of Selkies, hidden away for centuries by the Storm Ring.
Zanta flinched at every splash, every glisten on the water, expecting a hoard of seal people to rise up out of the sea and surround them, but what turned her stomach more were Stroud’s own words.
I fear that Yasmina and the others perished in the storm. I have been on this island for gods know how long. I should’ve dated these entries, but I do not know what day it is or how long I have been here. If the Silverfin is still afloat, wouldn’t they have found me by now?
I have taught Gwyneth some of my language, and she has taught me some of hers. The two are not so different as I first thought. I have been here long enough that we can communicate more easily now.
Then later.
Last night I woke up and Gwyneth was gone.
For a moment, I thought I’d dreamed her.
But I ventured out to the beach and I saw her in the water.
She was naked. Hair streaming down her back, skin pale in the moonlight.
I wanted to call out, but I could not. She wrapped herself in something that looked like an animal skin, and suddenly it was not a woman standing there but a gray seal slipping into the waves.
I waited all night for her to return, but she didn’t. I am alone again.
Several pages of hasty sketches followed. A small dwelling carved into the side of a cliff. The shoreline. Shells. The vague strokes of a woman’s face that was probably Gwyneth, and a more detailed face that looked like a female version of Henri and was labeled, Yasmina.
Gwyneth has returned and she is not alone. There was another seal with her. Another creature like her, who turned into an old woman when she took off the seal pelt. Gwyneth led her up the beach by the arm, with the gray pelts draped over their shoulders.
The woman is blind, but she looked at me as if she could see me.
Her eyes are two stone marbles. The right one is light green, like Gwyneth’s eyes.
The left is pitch black, like onyx. She yelled at Gwyneth in their strange language and I managed to catch some of it.
Gwyneth later told me she should not have saved my life.
They kill outsiders, to keep themselves safe.
There must be people here, on the other islands. I will ask Gwyneth about it, if I can.
A green stone eye? It had to be the same one Rowan had. Nia had said that her father stole it after her mother died, so it must be.
The blind woman banished me from the house, but Gwyneth led me to a cave down the beach.
I asked her all my questions. She said she was forbidden to tell me these things.
She shouldn’t have brought me here. But I took her hands in mine and thanked her for saving my life, and told her my ship was surely sunk and my crew was dead.
And she was the only thing I had in all the world.
She told me everything.
This island, small as it is, is called Seer’s Isle. There are many other islands. She wouldn’t name them all or tell me where they were. Her people are called Selkies. They have both a human form, and a form that is like a seal. There has not been a living human here in hundreds of years.
The old woman is something called a Seer, and Gwyneth is her apprentice and caretaker. The strange stone eyes are handed down from seer to seer and allow them to see beyond our world. They are the Eyes of the Sea. The green one is called Truth and the black one is called Fate.
It is truly fate that has brought me here. If the Selkies have riches like this entrusted to an old woman all alone on a remote island, what must their kings and warriors have?
Zanta’s stomach curdled. When she’d known Silver Stroud, he’d already been humbled by the loss of his daughter, but his words on this page hinted at the ego that had always been front and center in his personality.
These words said that he thought he had a right to whatever treasures he could manage to snatch from the Selkies.
Zanta was a pirate herself, dozens of pirates surrounded her on this ship, yet she had a code, and that code did not include robbing an isolated people of their cultural treasures.
She doubted Stroud had intended to use diplomacy to get what he wanted.
She skimmed over more drawings and found a series of short entries spaced far apart, among some ragged edges of torn-out pages.
Gwyneth and I are in love.
Gwyneth is pregnant.
Several pages of detailed drawings of a woman’s face with smudges of green in her eyes accompanied notes about Selkies and their culture and the Isles. She resembled Nia only in the way her eyes scrunched up with her smile.
Yasmina and the crew live! The Silverfin is battered but sailable. They thought me dead, and have been looking for a way back through the Storm Ring. The old woman screeched curses at us, but there is nothing she can do. I am going to sail out of here and find the treasures of the Sleeping Isles.
I asked Gwyneth to come with me, though I didn’t tell her my plans. I could conquer this place, and become king among them given enough men and supplies. And she could be my queen. Our child will be the prince of the Selkies. Perhaps Yasmina will agree to be mine too.
Zanta stared at the page for a long while, sickened. Then flipped to the next entry.
I overheard Gwyneth and the old woman talking and found the secret to getting through the Storm Ring. A Selkie pelt, freely given, is the key to tame the storms.
Zanta clamped a hand over her mouth and read on.
Gwyneth will not leave Seer’s Isle. I thought it would be best to bring her with me, but she is stubborn. I will have to find some other way.
I have the pelt, but I do not have Gwyneth or my unborn child. They remain behind. The Selkies found us. Warriors arrived in boats, and in their seal forms, at dawn, and we fled on the Silverfin, but not before I convinced Gwyneth to give me her pelt.
It is a thing of beauty, and it will tame the storms.
She flipped to the middle of the journal, finding several more jagged edges where pages used to be. Had Stroud torn them out himself or had someone else gotten their hands on the journal? She flipped further, and found more missing pages and then:
He stole from me. The bastard. The last piece of Gywneth is gone.
Zanta remembered not long before Emilie had become Stroud’s first mate, her predecessor had absconded with their takings for the season. Had he stolen other things too? And had Nia’s mother’s pelt been among them?
Zanta nearly jumped out of her skin as a large hand landed on her shoulder. She slammed the book closed and blinked away building tears before looking up to find Henri.
“Anything helpful?” he asked. They’d not talked further about the journal or Stroud or Nia in the days of navigating the forest of rocks.
Zanta shook her head. What could she tell him?
That his father was a monster who had abandoned his pregnant lover and planned to conquer her people?
She understood what had happened now, and little things about where they were, but there was nothing that would help them find Nia or navigate these treacherous waters.
“The captains are meeting.” Henri released her shoulder and cocked his thumb toward the Kraken’s stateroom. She tucked the journal into her waistband and followed him in.
The Demon, as always, lounged at the head of the table, boots propped on the shiny surface, legs crossed like he had not a care in the world.
While the rest of them looked stressed and disheveled, his onyx hair remained perfectly arranged, his elegant clothes clean, and his skin flawless.
Beside him, Rowan had taken off his eyepatch to redo his ponytail, clothes rumpled from the wind.
Together they looked like a scrappy mutt and a well-bred hunting hound.
But even a hound was a dog, no matter the riches heaped upon it.
Next to Rowan sat his first mate, Logan, Fox sitting on the other side wearing a very elegant green robe over tight pants with laces up the sides.
Henri settled into the chair next to him, leaving the space on the Demon’s left to Zanta.
Like Zanta, the Demon was currently without a first mate, but while his had been left behind to deal with the Siren, Zanta’s was dead.