This Vicious Sea

Chapter 1

CREAKING PISS POT OF A SHIP

ODELIA

A ship’s only silence lay in death.

The soft, rhythmic groan of tired wood conceals my steps as she sways beneath me, singing the melody we’ve danced to a thousand times.

Thick fog smothers us both—choking the drenched bones of her sail, soiling the wraps in my boots, wetting my lungs and compounding the fear that threatens to stop me, again.

But we aren’t in the water.

Not yet.

The Sea Bane is a ghost ship tonight, using the low cloud as cover to approach an ocean village that doesn’t know how easily the tide betrays it. By the time it learns, I’ll be miles inland, and the captain will have no choice but to go without me, or risk the navy’s wrath.

There are few on the top deck, only enough to keep us on target. I stick to the shadows, my cowl low, but it’s in vain. The fog works against me, and a man’s cough is all the warning I get before heavy steps bring the silhouette of a body too close. Damn it.

The mist hides the confusion on his face, but I hear it in his voice.

“Captain said no—” The words choke off as he hits the deck.

Flipping the knife is a matter of half a thought and muscle memory, and in a blink the kiss of its hilt leaves him unconscious.

Long, dark hair spills from the hood of his cloak.

Sammie. The meathead in charge of intimidating any random ‘recruits’ the captain decides to bring on.

Frustrated heat flashes through me—there’s no way the sound went unnoticed.

I step over him and manoeuvre towards the stern, dodging coiled rope and crates of glittering weapons prepped for the raid until I reach the rowboats by the captain’s office.

Their shapes are softened by the foggy gloom and the covers meant to dissuade rain.

One of them holds as much supplies as I could stash away as the mainland grew on the horizon.

Behind me, concerned murmurs break out, muted by the damp air. It’s beginning to sound like there may not be time to grab the map after all. I haven’t let myself imagine what it would be like to get caught, but—after being careful for months, it’s not worth it to risk it now.

I reach a hand to pull the cover away, to flee before the disturbance wakes anyone else, but clench my fist instead.

No. The map is the key to the entire plan.

A foolish plan, to anyone else, but if my hunch is right, I’ll sail into a life on soil, with a glittering pile of coin for comfort.

They’ve no reason to think Sammie didn’t find his way to the bottom of a bottle and lose his footing.

Even if they get suspicious, they won’t check the captain’s office.

The lock would be difficult if I hadn’t been practicing for most of my twenty-four years.

The door swings open on oiled hinges. It’s the height of vanity for him to silence the creak that might otherwise alert him to intruders, but it helps me now, allowing the heavy wood to open and close without a sound.

The polished handle is cool as I twist and ease it back into the frame, preventing the tell-tale click that might alert the man sleeping in the connected room.

That door would be barred from the inside with a solid length of galanthor bone.

I pull back my cowl and take a breath, trying to ground myself back into this moment.

My body always betrays me in here, the scent of waxed wood and barely there salt eliciting memories I’d rather forget.

The office is clean and deceptive, wealth hidden in plain sight—plush forest-green carpet, a standing suit of plate mail whose decorative inlay is betrayed by a ray of moonlight that shines in from the round glass window.

Railed shelves line one wall, stuffed with leather-bound books and priceless trinkets scattered between little carved wooden animals that wouldn’t go for a copper each.

My attention stalls there, suddenly frozen in indecision.

I’d already made peace with leaving behind my own collection—gorgeous leaves, mossy bark, the tiny bits of land I could hide in a pocket or bloody palm—but I’d underestimated the battle of wills it would take to leave my mother’s carvings behind.

Stealing even one is out of the question.

He would notice if any were gone immediately, and I’d be sacrificing time I can’t afford to lose.

Still, it takes everything in me to move on, gripping the nautilus pendant on my neck. It’ll be all I’ll have left of her.

It’ll have to be enough.

The desk takes up more than its share of space. It’s heavy, with intricate ocean patterns burned into the dark wood. The trick drawer slides out smooth, and again I thank past-me for scouting it out beforehand.

Click.

The hidden compartment at the bottom is small, the thin top coated with a thin layer of dust. Three rolls of parchment wait inside. They’re all cast-offs. Maps to treasure or the abandoned hidey holes of other crews. All are useless to the impatient or unimaginative.

I take the one with a broken golden seal, but leave the others.

The less angry he is, the more likely he’ll let me go without pursuit.

This map had been exhausted long months ago.

We’d wasted days after he tried to cut corners.

In his eyes, it's worthless. At least that’s what I tell myself as I tuck it into my boot with a trembling hand and clip the hidden compartment back down.

Just then, the ship catches a rogue wave, and it’s all I can do to grab for the loose drawer as everything rolls inside. It slaps itself closed, and my strained heart kicks into overdrive, shooting me out the door and down the double step in relative silence.

Holding my breath against the pounding in my veins, I choose a shadow across from the rowboats and sidle in, waiting.

Nothing.

Nothing but the Sea Bane’s song and the slow whine as the sail adjusts in the wind.

I pull my cowl up and breathe, letting the moment bring my mind back into blade-sharp focus before I start the next phase.

If the panic takes over, pushes too fast, the pulley for the rowboat will draw attention, and there’s a crate’s worth of acid bolts not ten steps away that’ll have me in open water with a single shot.

The thought drags the panic up again and I shove the image away. The fear stays, though, tight in my neck, lacing through my gut like a wave viper. Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of letting it win this time, so I force myself to the rowboat, tangle my fingers into the oiled cover, and pull.

“Nisse.”

My father’s voice is an afterthought as my heart drops to the waves below, sinking deeper as the moment ticks by. Heavy footsteps approach, but I don’t turn.

The rowboat is empty. All my supplies are gone.

A hot weight lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Balanced perfectly between warning and reassurance.

I rip away, hating that I step back as I face him. “How did you find out?”

He sets his shoulders, his huge chest rising and falling as he looks down at me and sighs.

The soft sound wraps me in a childish dread, especially as his attention darts to my side, and I realise I drew my dagger without thought.

The look in his eye says he’d welcome a challenge, but he waits for a moment, a quiet dare.

We both know he’s the only one on this ship that could best me in a fight.

But he’d win. He’d subdue me and throw me in the brig with no food.

The only water offered would be spilled onto the cell floor to mix with old piss.

Days without sunlight—without the wind on my skin.

I can’t fight him. The certainty seizes me and suddenly I’m eight years old again, crying, begging him not to make me use the weapon he put in my hand.

“You’re my daughter. And you’ve been scurrying around, hiding like a bilge rat for days.”

“As if I’d want to be noticed by the new recruits you picked up in Thornreach.

” The whole lot were a thumbless handful of unwashed, leering criminals who’ve wasted their chance at a normal life.

Piracy lends itself well to the type. I won’t watch another round of pointlessly cruel cannon fodder get their dicks hard by doing more harm than is necessary.

Once, we’d have taken what we needed and gone.

But as soon as my father brought in fresh meat, it was clear he’d planned another massacre.

I’d argued—of course I’d argued. But it’s always the same answer.

Our reputation is what protects us. Keeps the others too afraid to risk a fight.

His grey eyes deaden as my voice carries.

Embarrassing him is a worse offense than lifting my blade, but I need time.

Need to think. The map is still in my boot and the mainland isn’t far now.

I could beg for supplies, or forage in my shifted form, maybe, though I haven’t given into that side of me for years.

I feel it, just under my skin, all smothered instinct and jagged-edged fear.

Run.

I could—should—leap over the side. Should take my chances with the waves and pray to whatever god might listen to a woman with enough blood on her hands to have survived in this life.

“Nisse.” The threat in his voice draws me back. “If you’d have made it off this ship, you’d have died a slow, lonely death. Is that what you want?”

I swallow, letting my eyes fall to his stainless frock coat.

The black linen is strangely crisp, despite the time and the fingers of wet fog that curl around him, dulling the gilded buttons.

Once, I would have let his doubt become my own, but this time the words numb me, extinguish me.

Exhaustion rushes in, tucking itself into the empty spaces the frustration leaves behind.

“It’s the same fate I face here.” I sheath my blade and give him my back, issuing a challenge of my own as I tug the rowboat cover the rest of the way and let it fall to the deck. No matter how this ends, I’m done with this ship.