“She is.”
“She’s waiting for us on the shore. Care for a lift? James has already set out in a skiff from the Jolly Roger.”
“Please.”
Riding a griffin wasn’t unlike riding a horse and came easier with practice. Muir and Faolan had personally taught Joren how to hold them while in flight, patient teachers who instructed proper posture and how to read their cues. While their people weren’t beasts of labor to use for entertainment, the leaders of Clan Leomlaire weren’t too proud to host the occasional human in the event of an emergency. And children. They loved children.
Joren climbed onto his friend’s back without grasping too tight a handful of scruff, confident enough as a rider to maintain his seat a few dozen feet over the sea. Then they were off, leaving the Cannon behind in Baptiste’s care, in accordance with their chain of command. Below them, James looked up and made a crude gesture. Faolan and Joren both laughed, though their amusement was short-lived.
Tiger Lily met them on the shore, standing tall in warrior dress of leather and bone armor, a bow on her back and a staff clutched in her hand. Joren dismounted at once and crossed to the chieftain, his long stride eating up the short distance between them.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “What happened?”
“The Ridaerons came for us when they met no challenge in the water.”
“No challenge?”
“She means the sea serpent,” James said as he slogged ashore through a foot of water. “It protects the waters around the island. Always has.”
“Yes. The Sea Witch has withdrawn her protection of the island,” Tiger Lily said. “Why, I do not know. She will not see me. I’ve gone to her cavern a dozen times seeking her, but it’s empty. She refuses to answer my summons no matter how much I call for her. In fact, I’m not sure she is there at all.”
“When has anyone last seen her?” Joren asked.
James removed his hat and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Gods, I haven’t crossed paths with Caecilia in almost two years. She avoids me now and I keep well out of her way.”
Joren cocked a brow. “Why’s that?”
“I rebuked her when she interfered in my love life with Belle. That hag offered her an awful, shameful deal to—”
“Her deal was fair,” Tiger Lily said. “Though I’ve judged Caecilia in the past, and discouraged my people from relying on her for solutions to their problems, it is always up to the wishmaker to decide how deeply they covet their heart’s desire. She does not force anyone to accept her deals. Your Belle left.”
“And her crocodile nearly destroyed my ship because of it.”
“She did not send Croc to avenge her honor, James. You know this.”
“How do I know it?”
“She told me so.” Tiger Lily raised her chin. “The Sea Witch is many things, but she is no liar. She has never represented herself as anything more than what she is. But…she has forsaken us, and I do not understand why. I don’t know why she would leave us now when we need her most.”
“Nor do I,” James said, shoulders sagging. “Tiger Lily, I’m so sorry this happened under my watch.”
“You can’t watch the entire sea, James. Caecilia is not the only one to vanish. Ghost Hawk, our great shaman and mentor, was our only other hope, and I fear he has died. We have not seen him since a day prior to the invasion.”
“Gods. I remember that old fellow. Belle adored him. She’ll be gutted to know he’s gone,” James muttered.”
Tiger Lily nodded. “Come. There is much to show you, if Faolan’s people will bear us east.”
Faolan raised his beak toward the sky and called the other two. Mounted on griffinback, it cut the long journey by canoe to mere minutes, crossing the expanse of water between the two islands. The griffins landed on the shore where the stink of dead raiders fouled the air, then the three humans dismounted.
“This is where the attack did the most damage, our island of M’Qrioc. Many of our farmers lived here, as the land was the most fertile and green without living near the danger of Hla’aulu Aili. She doesn’t erupt often, but when she does, the entire crop is destroyed. Unfortunately, the soil at her base is also the most fertile,” she explained.
“I wish we had been here to fight them off, Tiger Lily. I’m sorry,” James repeated again.
“As I said before, you’re not the one at fault, James. No one is. This is our island, and ultimately, it should be ours to defend. We may lack your cannons and weapons, but we’re not defenseless.”
“Merely outnumbered,” Muir murmured. “So, they came from the east and pulled their boats ashore here, I see.”
“Yes. I can show you.”
Joren raised a brow. “Show us?”
“Yes. I will show you. Such is a story I cannot share with only words, for there are no curses in Toatunoa or Eislandic strong enough to relay what I feel. The spirits must help me.”
Tiger Lily raised her staff over her head and called out in her native tongue. The air had been still and quiet before, but a subtle breeze snaked in from the water. It picked up grains of sand from the beach and swept them through to the orchard. Ashes stirred and lifted, bringing embers in a whirlwind of black and scarlet.
Then people emerged from the chaos, and amorphous bodies carried out what Joren assumed were their typical, everyday chores.
“It was our harvest season. Our trees mature for two years, growing sweeter with each month until the time comes to harvest. Mamanalo gifts us the water of their trunks for our bread, the leaves roof our homes, the petals of her flowers dye our clothing, and the meat from her fruit feeds our children. No part of the tree goes to waste.”
Joren watched the ghostly specters passing buckets down a line of workers, some filled with sloshing, spiritual liquid, others filled to the brim with fist-sized fruits.
“Then the giant men came.”
“Giant—?”
The wind stirred and fog arose from the water, coalescing into the distinct shapes of Ridaeron slaving ships. As longboats pushed ashore, the mist thickened and became the defined silhouettes of men disembarking from them with swords and shields, dragging nets. All around, a scene played out with crystalline clarity of the horror that took place that day.
He’d never seen Ridaeron warriors of such monstrous size and had to wonder if their intimidating stature had been exaggerated by Tiger Lily’s memory.
The Wai Alei committed to the harvest stood no chance against their assailants. A plague of Ridaerons swarmed over the island, capturing women and young children, slaughtering or beating men into the sand.
His heart hurt. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t look away, letting his fury strengthen his resolve until nothing but hatred burned in his chest.
“We fought them. As they stormed westward, I gathered the war band, and we were able to push them back. By then, they had burned the sweetwater orchard and taken our most vulnerable. There are three more islands east, protected by many of our best warriors. All are emptied, the land razed and salted. Salted, Prince Joren. It was not enough to deprive us of food, of our family, but these…lukfa’alu ruined our futures on that land.”
“Can you grow more?”
Tiger Lily’s bitter smile cleaved into his heart. “Not for many years. This island produced more than half of our sweetwater. Without it…I…” The chieftain blinked a few times and gripped her staff in a white-knuckled grip. Unshed tears swam in her eyes. “I do not know what we will do. But we have survived famines before. We will again.”
Joren gazed over the devastation spreading from the shoreline into the heart of the island village. Nothing but the blackened husks of their stilt homes remained, gutted by the flames. His queasy stomach spasmed.
“I need to know one thing. This witch…she wouldn’t be so petty as to abandon these fine people because you turned her away, would she, James?”
“I…” The former pirate clenched his jaw. “I had thought her to be above th
at, but now I have my doubts. Either she’s forsaken the Neverlanders, or she’s…”
“Dead,” Joren finished. He clenched his fist.
James nodded. “For her sake, she’d better be on her own deathbed. I’m off to find her now.”
* * *
In the privacy of her secluded grotto, Caecilia wept bitter tears. Once again, her obsession with a mortal man had caused pain for the people under her care. Would she never learn? Her father had been right to banish her; all she did was bring death.
The people of Wai Alei deserved better. For centuries she’d watched over them and cared for them as if they were her own children. Once, long ago, she had thought that if she were ever to find love, it would be among the islanders. Until Joren.
No man would want her now. Certainly not Joren, and if he knew the truth of her identity, he’d hate her even more. Who could blame him if he saw her as less than pond scum after what had happened under her watch?
Though the weeks in his company had been two months of absolute bliss, Coral Shell could never see the sunlight again. Caecilia removed her pendant and buried it in the mud where she hoped to forget it ever existed.
At least for one more month. Then it wouldn’t matter whether she had the locket or not, because her accelerated curse would have reached its end.
And Neverland would be without their protector indefinitely, all because of her selfishness.
* * *
Misery never travelled alone, often leading Joren to wonder if his life was cursed to eternal unhappiness. The damage done to Wai Alei had been awful enough, but discovering Coral had vanished drove a stake right through his heart. No one recalled seeing her once she’d been ferried to the shore with Baptiste and a few other crewmen who volunteered to help with clean-up.
He wondered if she had rushed home in worry to check on her family—it’s what he would have done—but also feared she had left, never to return. With no way to track her down, he turned his attention to what he could help with.
A loss that could have been avoided if the Sea Witch had joined the defenses.
Ending three long days of difficult work in the southeastern island communities of Neverland’s archipelago, Joren stood on the edge of the beach, where the pink sand bleached white. He paused to roll his pant legs to his knees and made his way barefoot toward the mouth of a shaded grotto. The entrance to the Sea Witch’s cave, even at low tide, meant wading through calf-high water. Joren gingerly stepped onto the algae-slickened rocks.
He’d rather be anywhere else—his back, arms, and thighs screaming for rest after days of hauling wreckage and rebuilding homes, but James and Tiger Lily had thrown in the towel. Someone had to confront the Sea Witch about her apathy, and a tiny voice of reason told Joren it was too early to give up on her.
Instinct told him a woman, even if she was a sea monster, didn’t abandon her home after centuries of protecting it. The scholar in him demanded to know why.
“I call on Caecilia the Sea Witch,” he yelled into the gloom. The only sound that came back besides his echoing voice was the slow drip of water against the rocks. Heeding James’s warning that she was light-sensitive, he didn’t summon a magical lantern to see despite the temptation. “Caecilia!”
“Why do you call me, human prince?” The voice came from his left, as brittle as dry reeds.
He turned, trying to spot her, but she kept to the shadows. “I call because you won’t answer anyone else.”
A scraping sound came from his left, then again from ahead. “That isn’t the true reason.”
“You’re right, it isn’t. I’ve come to ask why you failed to protect the islands.”
Caecilia slithered into the light, the green glow from the water casting an eerie luminescence over her haggard face and bony shoulders. He didn’t recoil, but the hairs on his nape and arms prickled. The thick tail she dragged behind her coiled against the rocks, resembling an eel more than the elusive mermaids in Eislandic illustrations. He’d seen one once when he was a boy at sea with his father. She had been breathtaking, with a long turquoise and violet tail trailing in the water behind her.
No one would describe Caecilia as beautiful, even after a few pints. Ale could only do so much to improve a homely woman’s looks. She hadn’t been beneath the sun in years, her flesh white and wrinkled as newly hatched larvae, and her black hair hung around her narrow, age-creased face in knotted tendrils.
As if aware of his scrutiny, she shrank back from him and crawled onto the far ledge. Her colorless eyes gleamed silver in the darkness.
“Why did you forsake the islands?”
“Why blame me for every ill this island encounters?” she countered, voice rising. “Am I to live each day waiting at the shoreline and watching for invaders?”
“They depended on you to protect them,” Joren growled back. “These people rely on you.”
“Who are you to come into my domain making demands and laying blame? You have no power here. Return to your ship if you have orders to give, human. For centuries I have lived here, requesting nothing from them, and yet all they do is ask of me one favor after the next.”
Joren ground his teeth. James had warned him of her pride, and he hadn’t heeded the man’s advice. Quieting, he watched the shadows and studied her silhouette, deciding to take another angle.
“You’re right that I have no say on this island, but I care for its people just the same, Caecilia,” he said in a neutral tone, guarding his temper. “People you allowed to be taken by slavers. As what? A lesson? I deserve to know why. They deserve to know why.”
The Sea Witch’s shoulders sagged and her head dropped, lank hair sliding forward to hide her face. Her remorse, and the undisguised melancholy in her posture, cooled his rising anger.
“You didn’t want this to happen,” he said. “Your reaction just now—it was all an act, wasn’t it?”
“Of course I did not want this to happen. I had no idea the Ridaeron ships would come. They’ve avoided these islands for years.”
“Because of your serpent. Why didn’t it defend them?”
“Even a sea monster must rest,” she said in a quiet voice. “It isn’t a slave to remain perpetually vigilant. It isn’t a pet.”
“Is it magic? I’ve never seen it.”
Caecilia didn’t answer.
“Please, talk to me. Help me understand.”
“The serpent did not protect them because I left. Because, for once, I wanted time alone for myself.” Her voice shook. “Because I am the Neverland serpent.”
Oh shit. Neither James nor Tiger Lily had mentioned that, leading him to wonder if they weren’t aware Caecilia was a shapeshifter like their Cairn Ocland allies. When he stepped forward, the hag jerked back, keeping the existing distance between them. He had to play it safe. Rather than press, he stopped and adopted an unaggressive stance. “I think I understand.”
“How could you possibly understand?”
“Because I know what it means to have responsibility you never asked for, never wanted, thrust upon you.”
* * *
Tiger Lily had visited twice since Caecilia’s return, but the tone of her pleas implied she’d spent days longer trying to contact the witch. The day following Tiger Lily’s surrender, James stormed up to the entrance of the grotto and dared to charge inside, shouting and full of judgmental fury while Caecilia shamefully hid beneath the water, squeezing her body and bloated tail into a shadowed nook while he ranted admonishments at her.
The Wai Alei had counted on her.
She’d allowed innocents to die.
And of course, James had demanded to know what fee she must have expected for her continued cooperation with the islanders, assuming lack of payment motivated her indifference to their struggles.
Now Joren visited her with his limitless patience, daring to claim he understood her.
“You and I are nothing alike, prince,” she said, hating each soft word as it passed her lips. “As you’ve made
clear, I am responsible for the fate of this island. You would never have done such a thing.”
“I don’t think you meant to. Not anymore.”
She laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. “But I am responsible. Now I must bear the burden.”
“You don’t have to. Our combined fleet prepares for war to bring back our countrymen. If you remain to protect the islands, I swear I’ll make sure yours come back as well.”
She would have expected him to make the offer to Tiger Lily, not her. While he didn’t offer comfort, he treated her with unexpected respect and empathy.
“No, young prince. I must go to right my wrong.” She took a chance and moved into the light. Joren held steady and didn’t recoil. His gaze flickered for the briefest of moments from her face to her tail, then back again.
“You mean to go after them yourself?”
“Yes. I will rain hell upon their shores until they relinquish every last Neverlander,” she said grimly.
“How would you even find them?”
“How would you?”
A familiar smile made a brief appearance on his handsome face. “The Grand Enchanter. Perhaps you two could work together. You’re a witch, he’s a wizard; it’s clear we all have more to gain if we work together.”
“Perhaps. You should go now, before they suspect I’ve tempted you into a deal or done you harm.”
“Come with me.” He offered his hand.
“No.” She drew back, sliding once more into the shadows. “I must see to the other islands first.”
“Then at least don’t go east alone. Accompany our ships. If you’ll do that, I’ll make sure we leave Wai Alei with protection.”
She considered the wisdom of his request and her own desire to see the captured islanders returned. Together, they stood a better chance of success.
“You have a deal.”
Chapter 20
Sea Witch and the Magician Page 21
