And Niya’s sentence had begun.
How is this possible?
Niya didn’t know how to feel. How to think. What now to do.
She remained still, staring at the empty doorframe, where her whole world had recently left her behind.
A cold slip of energy along her neck brought her back to the room, reminding her who else was still in it.
Alōs was now sitting at his desk. He did not look at her as he scribbled notes into a ledger. He appeared too large a form to be able to make such delicate markings, his hands too strong for his thin quill, his body too soulless to be made up of flesh and bone.
She loathed every inch of him.
“Kintra will show you to your responsibilities,” he said, not lifting his eyes. “You may leave now.”
Niya blinked, ice curling around her spine. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say after . . . everything? After you’ve gotten all you’ve wanted?”
Alōs stopped writing, his gaze slowly meeting hers. “Welcome aboard the Crying Queen, pirate.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Niya decided there was no limit to Alōs’s evil.
Under the hot sun of a new day, the endless sea a backdrop all around her, she found herself standing before the gray-haired woman she had fought earlier—one of the few Niya had so far learned held a portion of the lost gods’ gifts. Burlz was also present, the greasy oaf who had slapped and gagged her within Alōs’s quarters.
Burlz drank in the sight of her, his promise of pain still glimmering as he licked his dry lips.
“Niya, this is Saffi, our master gunner,” explained Kintra, gesturing to the muscular woman, who assessed Niya with narrowed brown eyes. She could feel the pulse of her metallic magic. “And this is her crew.” Six pirates, Burlz included, stood around Saffi. “You’ll be eighth in her artillery team.”
No one said anything as Niya studied the group just as they studied her. Distrust swam in the salty air.
“Right, then,” continued Kintra. “I’ll leave you all to it.”
“Wait,” said Niya, stopping Kintra’s retreat. “What of this bath Alōs—”
“Captain Ezra,” corrected Kintra, voice stern. “He is Captain or Captain Ezra to you, girl.”
Niya prickled at the chastening but nonetheless replied, “Yes, of course. And this bath that the captain said I could get? When can I expect it?”
Laughter filled the deck beside her.
“Yes, please let us know when all our baths will be ready,” guffawed a skinny man, his pale skin splotchy with sores, only four teeth visible with his wide grin.
“I’d like mine drawn with rose petals,” added a round woman, slapping a hand to Burlz’s back on a chuckle.
Niya pinched her brows together, annoyance flaring. “I see I have said something that amuses you all. But I take my hygiene seriously, which it is more than apparent that you do not.”
Her comment sobered a few.
Good, thought Niya.
Kintra merely shook her head. “You’ll find your bath in one of the barrels you can lower into the sea along the main deck,” she explained. “Or you can wait for the next time we are in port and find your washing in town.”
“Or ya can strip right here, and I’ll wash ya real good,” said Burlz, eyes leering at her chest.
Niya’s magic hummed hot with her growing irritation. “How kind of you, Burlz,” she said, mock sweetness dripping, “but seeing as you smell worse than a cow’s underside lying in the heat, I fear you’d only make anyone you go near reek just the same.”
The large man’s grin flattened just as the two pirates on either side of him took a step away.
“All right, you rodents,” said Saffi, gray braids swinging as she turned to her team, “enough group bonding. I’ve got it from here, Kintra. Thanks for the extra hands. I only hope she doesn’t end up being extra weight.”
“So do I,” muttered Kintra, giving one last appraising gaze to Niya before she strode away.
Niya clamped her jaw together to keep from letting loose another scathing remark. I am here for a year, she reminded herself soberly. I do not need friends among these pirates, but it would be easier if they were allies. As Niya had found out the hard way, a ship full of forty or so enemies was one too many for her to take on alone.
“All right, Niya,” said Saffi, “you’ll pair up with Therza today. She’s the most patient of us so can show a green calf such as youself how we work. But know now, I run a tight team, especially with how we protect this ship and disarm others. The Crying Queen has a reputation to uphold, and I ain’t gonna have anyone change that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Niya, which earned her a contented nod from Saffi before she turned to shoo the rest of her men and women to continue in their duties.
Niya was left to find a round woman who must have been Therza smiling up at her. Niya herself was not tall, but Therza seemed to almost be the same shape and size of the cannonballs stacked beside them. Her black skin gleamed with sweat under the hot sun, but she wore a lopsided grin as though the heat didn’t bother her in the least, as well as a glassy gaze that perhaps spoke of too many days breathing in cannon powder.
Unlike Saffi, this woman held no gifts. In fact, Niya was the only other in their artillery group who did.
“All right, Red,” said Therza, “let me show you how to become one of us.”
“Red?” wondered Niya as she followed the woman to a nearby cannon.
“I ain’t never seen hair as pretty and bright as yours before,” explained Therza. “Like fresh blood,” she mused almost longingly.
Niya decided then that Therza would be best as an ally.
With efficiency, the woman explained how the Crying Queen was gunned by eight cannons, four on either side. Any more would slow them down. “Plus, we use these children as a last resort.” She patted the heavy black metal. “Ships sunk to the bottom of the Obasi Sea are useless to raid. Better to sail close and quick so as to crawl on board for an attack. But that don’t mean we don’t take care of our kids, now does it?” she added before explaining how they needed to swab and clean the cannons every morning and night, lest they rust in the salt air.
While Niya didn’t know the difference between a jib and a spinnaker, she knew a thing or two about defending and fighting, so it was with a fascinated eye that she found herself learning the rest of her responsibilities, which included the task of loading and aiming cannons.
Everything happened quickly after that. Therza took her around to introduce her to more crew members than names she’d be able to remember, gave fast tutorials about the rest of the ship, and divided duties.
No one yet asked of Niya’s background or why they had a new pirate among them. They seemed to know better than to question their captain’s orders and, Niya surmised, had pasts of their own they’d rather not resurface anytime soon.
And despite the crew’s surly appearances and hard gazes, Burlz and his skinny sidekick, whom Niya had learned was called Prik, were the only ones to really give her a hard go of it as the days progressed. She caught them on more than one occasion dirtying the iron shafts she had recently cleaned with muck and sand. But Niya kept steady, despite the duo’s daily attempts to incite her.
As Niya scrubbed her assigned cannons clean once more, sweat dripping down her neck under the endless daily blaze of the sun, Arabessa’s words flowed strongly around her. You cannot always act on your every whim and feeling. Maybe then you will stop finding yourself in these situations. Even her father’s comment about her mother helped steady her. You know, your mother was also known to run hot on occasion. If Johanna had found ways to calm her emotions, so could Niya. This time, she truly decided to listen to the advice of her family. After all, the long game of revenge was something Niya was practiced in, and for what she wished to do to Burlz and his puppet, Prik, she would need a better reason than a bit of delinquent antics from the men to grant it.
As the sun and moon practi
ced their endless chase of morning and night, the open waters remaining empty of land or ship, Niya’s muscles began to hurt in places she had not thought possible. Even her scalp ached, but it was a soreness that meant her body was moving, her magic pumping strongly through her veins. She’d take that any day over being forced still. Even the pranks the artillery team played on her, oiling the cannonballs so they would slip through her fingers, spoke of them beginning to warm to her.
“There’s always a bit of hazing when guppies come aboard,” Therza had said, slapping Niya good-naturedly on the back after she’d retrieved her dropped ball. Niya had gritted her teeth and smiled through the cackles, continuing her tasks. Though she was currently still the butt of their jokes, she was at least a part of them. Niya knew from growing up around scoundrels and thieves that they acted like wolves in a pack. To be ignored by her team would be a far worse fate.
Before she knew it, a week had passed.
As Niya stood from her task of wiping down the cannonballs to stretch her back, a sobering realization hit her: she hadn’t thought of her family or the curse of her binding bet in quite some time.
Frowning, Niya looked out to the open water from where she stood at port side. The sea shimmered a deep blue as the sun reflected like white diamonds off small waves, today’s constant breeze the sweetest poultice against her sweating skin.
It appeared being busy had kept her mind from dropping into melancholy regarding her fate, regarding where exactly she was, on Alōs’s ship, as part of his crew . . . for a year.
“Good job, Red,” said Saffi as she strode past, assessing the gleaming stack of cannons before Niya. Therza’s nickname seemed to have spread, and Niya hated that it was growing on her as well. It made her feel . . . a part of something.
But I’m already a part of something, she silently argued as she snatched up her rag, resuming shining the already-shined balls. My family, the Mousai. I don’t need anyone else, especially not anyone on this ship.
For to enjoy any part of her daily life on the Crying Queen or with these pirates felt like becoming a traitor to her pride, to all she had worked and suffered in her attempts at getting out from Alōs’s grip.
With a tired sigh, Niya put her thoughts toward her home once more. She wondered what her sisters were up to right now. Were they together in Jabari or frolicking in the Thief Kingdom?
With a sudden suffocating grip, there it was again, the wave of sorrow at her current fate, followed by a painful bout of jealousy.
Damn it, she silently cursed. This is exactly why I must stay busy.
Sulking was useless.
There was enough on board to occupy her mind, and more than enough to complain about.
To start, the food here was disastrous. With no place to keep things cold or frozen on a ship, everything was dried, salted, smoked, or pickled. Every meal was a pruned, shriveled mess. Niya knew there were chickens aboard, for she could hear and smell them in the galley, but it seemed eggs were saved for the precious captain. The cook, Mika, merely laughed when Niya suggested slaughtering a few birds for the crew.
“We’ve been at sea for almost a fortnight, Red,” Mika said while waving around his knife. “So unless we raid a ship carrying crates of these feathered rats, the ones left aboard wouldn’t satisfy half a pirate here.”
Niya would later learn that this pear-shaped, gap-toothed man was also the Crying Queen’s surgeon.
She prayed to the lost gods she would not find herself in serious need of his aid.
Niya’s other major complaint had to do with her new sleeping arrangements. No longer in her private compartment, she had been shown to the crew’s quarters two floors below deck. This was when she wondered if being a prisoner was perhaps a better status. Hammocks were stacked three tall and too many rows deep. Niya was forced to be sandwiched between men and women, subjected to their snoring, flatulence, and other distasteful sounds and smells. She couldn’t even bring herself to think long on the toilets. Basically, holes cut at the water level at the bow of the ship, allowing waves crashing in to be the only form of cleaning the vents. The smells alone were suffocating.
At least her two bunkmates seemed decent. Above her slept Bree, the tiny girl with wide eyes and a short blonde crop whom she had met the first days aboard the Crying Queen.
Bree was just as curious and animated as then, and so small that when she lay in her hammock, she barely created a dent in the sheet. Her size was a benefit, Bree had explained, for she was a sheet trimmer.
“It’s my job to help get the ship back up to speed after tacking and keeping the spinnaker flying during jibes.”
Niya had merely nodded up at the girl from her hammock, having not a clue what Bree had uttered.
“Which means she’s gotta be a little monkey and be quick in climbing all over the place,” Niya’s lower bunkmate, Green Pea, had popped his head out to explain. Though he was nothing like the vegetable, Niya had learned Green Pea had gotten his name because he had been the newest edition to the crew before Niya had come aboard. “As green and pea brained as a newborn,” Therza had explained. He was part of the pit crew and had told Niya her first night sleeping above him many of his duties, though Niya had stopped listening as soon as he’d mentioned dropping the spinnaker.
Now, as she lay in her swaying hammock below deck, Niya’s body exhausted from her recent day’s work, Green Pea’s small, mewling snores floated up from under her.
“He falls asleep as soon as he lies down,” said Bree, from where she was peering down at Niya from the edge of her hammock.
“Whereas you turn over to prattle questions at me as soon as I do,” countered Niya, closing her eyes. If I close my eyes, perhaps this time she’ll get the hint and just go to bed.
“I know you can play with fire,” said Bree, “but is that all your magic can do?”
Niya opened one eye to stare up at the girl. “If I tell you all I can do, you’ll have nightmares for the rest of your days. Now go to sleep before it’s too late.”
“Truly?” breathed Bree. “Can you do as much as the captain?”
This had Niya snapping both eyes open. “I guess you’d have to tell me what the captain can do for me to agree or not.”
“Oh, he can do practically anything.”
I doubt that, thought Niya sardonically.
“Name one,” she goaded. She already knew Alōs’s magic was strong, but to learn anything new about the pirate captain was too good a chance to give up. Secrets. Everyone has secrets.
Perhaps this could be the advantage Niya needed, something to finally be able to best the soulless bastard.
Niya watched Bree glance around the compartment before leaning closer to Niya and whispering, “He can walk on water.”
Niya raised her brows, unable to hide her genuine shock. “Walk on water?”
Bree nodded.
“I don’t believe it,” said Niya, settling back into her hammock.
“Well, I didn’t believe someone could hold fire in their hand and not get burned until I saw you do it,” explained Bree.
Niya frowned. Not enjoying that Bree had a point.
But still . . . walk on water?
“How?” asked Niya.
Bree shrugged above her. “Water seems to feed his gifts, so I guess why wouldn’t he be able to control it enough to walk on?”
Realizations slammed hard into Niya then. Water seems to feed his gifts.
By the Obasi Sea, of course!
How had Niya not put this together before? His magic was always so cold, wet, especially as it came out to block her heat whenever she tried to hit him with a spell.
Alōs was also said to have come from Esrom, the hidden underwater kingdom; it would make sense his gifts would be connected to something that surrounded his people’s land. Interesting, thought Niya. Did all the gifted from Esrom power their magic the same way? What would happen if he were in a dry landscape? Would he become weaker in his magic, as Niya did when she c
ould not move?
Niya’s mind reeled at what this could mean.
Leverage, her magic cooed.
Yes, she agreed, a genuine smile creeping across her lips.
So happy was she with this new information that Niya slipped into a peaceful sleep for the first time since stepping onto the Crying Queen, momentarily forgetting she was surrounded by deadly pirates. Especially two who were watching and waiting in the dark.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Wake up! hissed her magic into the depths of her mind, just as the creaking of floorboards interrupted Niya’s dreams of a dark kingdom hidden inside a cave, the splendor of costumes and familiar laughter.
Niya snapped her eyes open as a large shadow passed overhead, a subtle wind from an arm rising.
Niya caught it on the downfall. She struggled to hold a jagged dagger a few hairs above her chest. Burlz grunted and ripped the knife out of her grip before swinging down again.
Niya twirled out of her hammock, falling past Green Pea’s, before hitting the ground in a crouch.
On her way to stand, she kicked out the legs of a second attacker who was standing nearby.
He fell against the floor with a grunt, and Niya instantly recognized the reedy figure—Prik.
The two pirates had approached her from either side of her bunk as she slept.
The scrawny worm was scrambling to his feet just as Burlz squeezed through the break in the hammocks to lunge toward her.
She twirled away, her magic swirling at the ready in her gut, but she pushed it down. Not yet, she thought, backing down the alley that was made from the rows and rows of sleeping pirates in their bunks. Niya wanted to feel the satisfaction of punishing Burlz and Prik with her bare hands.
“I said I’d be gettin’ you back for disrespectin’ me,” sneered Burlz as he stalked toward her, his gaze glassy from drink but no less burning with his loathing. “Might as well not make me chase ye, deary. It only gets me goin’ more.”
“Then that makes two of us,” said Niya, ducking to enter a new row. “Playing with my food always makes it taste sweeter.”
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