Dance of a Burning Sea

by Mellow, E. J.

  Crack.

  A gasp left Niya in a whoosh as another blaze sliced across her back, clearing her mind of all thought. Uncontrolled tears streamed down her face, snot from her nose.

  She began to shiver.

  “Harder!” some of the crew goaded beside her.

  “Where are ya powers now, Red?” another shouted.

  She would be shown no mercy here.

  Not only had Niya made them look like fools, but she had also disobeyed their captain. Any pirate who had acted thus would be punished, had been punished, even killed. A flash of Prik being decapitated beside her filled her mind. These were the rules on the Crying Queen. And she was part of the Crying Queen, whether she liked it or not.

  Plus, the law was the same in the Thief Kingdom. She knew because she and her sisters were the enforcers for their king. Torture and punishment were acts synonymous with the Mousai. They might be creatures who spun awake beauty, but it was a mirage concealing a fatal touch. How many souls had she sent to the Fade for their transgressions? Niya shook the question from her mind, for it did not matter. This was the world they all lived in.

  Her father had raised his daughters to be brave, ensured they learned not to crumble under pain or heartache, for life was ripe with both, he would say. Niya was determined to make him proud now as well as her sisters.

  She could take this punishment as any on board this ship would, as her family would have too.

  This was the price of the leverage she had sought.

  Niya caught Bree and Green Pea standing silently to one side, and though they did not share in the jeering, their gazes held a mix of emotion—anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness.

  A wave of guilt slithered into Niya’s chest a moment before another lash fell upon her like lightning. Cold and hot, bone breaking.

  HURRRRT, her magic demanded, nearly choking her as it fought to be let loose. But Niya tightened her hold around it, sucking down the eruption of revenge wanting to be freed from every pore on her body. She panted past the consuming pain dizzying her mind and running red rivulets down her skin.

  She would prove to this ship of scoundrels that while she might be many things, she was no coward. And if nothing else, that would keep a seed of respect in their detestable hearts.

  Hearts she had been on the cusp of connecting with.

  Crack.

  Niya bowed forward, her cheek slapping against the wooden mast.

  She could smell her blood and sweat soaking her shirt, iron and salt invading her nostrils.

  Stay in control! she silently screamed at her gifts.

  For it wasn’t merely her pride that kept Niya from striking out. It was remembering the look on Alōs’s face when he’d seen her in his parents’ bedchamber. He’d been enraged, to be sure, but he’d also revealed another emotion that Niya clung to: terror. Niya had found more than one weakness in the nefarious pirate’s cold, hard veneer this night: his family, Ariōn. She did not revel in the loss of his parents, of course. Niya was not that heartless. But beyond this Prism Stone, for her to know another precious secret of Alōs’s, just as he had known one of hers, brought a wicked grin to her lips.

  Crack.

  Niya bit her tongue. Blood pooled in her mouth as she forced her focus once again on the half-faded band on her wrist. She had found a way out.

  She would be free.

  Free from this ship.

  Crack.

  Free from any more pain the man behind her could cause.

  Crack.

  Pain she wondered if he enjoyed inflicting to hide his own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Crying Queen sailed topside, leaving Esrom and entering waters much closer to the Valley of Giants. Despite the days of travel this saved, Alōs sat in his chambers unhinged.

  He hadn’t felt like this in a very long while.

  He hated it.

  Alōs could always control his emotions. He allowed very little to get under his skin.

  But now it was as if worms wriggled all around.

  His gaze loomed over the silver sandglass on his desk, the grains filtering to fill the bottom more than the top. Alōs curled his hand into a fist, holding back the urge to swipe the bloody thing out of his view, to hear the satisfying crash of the glass shattering against his floor, sand spilling out, no longer counting down his failures.

  Swiveling his chair around, Alōs looked out to the morning light bathing the azure sea beyond his windowpane. He was being stretched too thin. Too many things to command, to find, to fix, to forget, to hold in. Which role was he meant to play today?

  Cold: Cold was the only solace he had, where he could escape within and keep still. Cold allowed him to think clearer. Be solid. Strong.

  Though even he knew the problem with ice was how easily it broke under the right tool.

  Niya seemed to be the pointed hammer, forged in heat, swinging down again and again.

  And he had brought her aboard.

  Alōs rubbed against the throb pounding along his temples.

  Finding Niya in his parents’ bedchamber, so close to their lifeless bodies, his fragile brother by his side, had erupted an anger in Alōs he had never before felt. All in that room were the last bits of his past that kept light in his dark heart. And Niya had been witness.

  He had felt raw and exposed standing there, her blue eyes pinned on him, triumphant smile on her lips. It was intolerable and something he had to quickly remedy.

  Yet despite it all, he had not enjoyed carrying out the fire dancer’s sentencing as he might have suspected. Perhaps it was because she’d so willingly followed him back to the ship, both of them silent in their own thoughts. She hadn’t put up a fight, either, as her punishment had been voted upon by the crew, before she’d been turned to take her lashings. Such a powerful creature resigned to her fate. It felt . . . wrong. Even if she had brought it upon herself.

  But Alōs had to do it. Had to satisfy his pirates. Had to follow the rules that he had set upon his ship. Those who disobeyed were punished. Alōs had killed the last pirate who’d been so foolish as to follow him in Esrom.

  And though he had threatened to end Niya’s life, he truly did need her help.

  Alōs let out a steadying breath as his magic stirred with his annoyance.

  Niya was right. She held powers greater than any other of his crew and connections in the Thief Kingdom that could be extremely advantageous come the time Alōs required them. So there Alōs stood, finding himself in the unfortunate position of having to take any advantage he could to regain the other part of the Prism Stone.

  He needed Niya’s willingness to aid him, not just her obedience. And with her possible shortened sentence, she had her incentive to do so.

  But if Alōs was not of a mind to take Niya’s life for her breaking his laws, something of equal measure had needed to be carried out for his crew to not revolt. It was also the only way Niya could get back in her peers’ good graces and how he could hold his position of power. His pirates would have found their own punishment for her if Alōs had not, bringing chaos in the form of revenge onto his ship. Alōs could not have that. It was better he be the one in control than those who would not stop until she was sent to the Fade.

  New crew members were always looked upon skeptically, but one who so quickly played them for fools was as good as dead.

  His pirates had wanted blood, so blood was what he’d given them.

  Alōs kept it to eight lashes, however, and none strong enough to do severe damage. His restraint while in his rage surprised even him. But just as he needed her help, he needed Niya healthy, not healing once they reached the Valley of Giants. He hoped she understood the lightness of her punishment.

  His hands still vibrated from the memory of the whip as it had met its mark. Leather to flesh.

  He shook his palms out.

  He was changing. Again. And Alōs wasn’t sure it was in a way he desired.

  Leaning back in his chair, Alōs list
ened to the slow trickle of the silver sandglass behind him.

  He was growing tired. Tired of the chase, the scheming, the race to always be making up for his past. But most of all he was growing tired of cruelty.

  And that was a dangerous problem.

  He could not survive the life he’d built if he was not ruthless.

  Even from birth Alōs had been required to be harder, cerebral rather than playful, for he had been meant to be king. He had to be capable of making decisions many could not. This had produced a certain amount of apathy in his blood from an early age. “To rule with respect,” his mother had told him, “one must place a kingdom above themselves, place the fate of many above the sentencing of one.”

  But now his parents were dead. His younger brother was to be the new king of a homeland on the brink of exposure and collapse. Ariōn would never survive.

  The problem with a civilization hiding for millennia under the lost gods’ protection was that it grew weak. Why build fortifications or learn to fight when it was not needed? Esrom had grown soft in its comfortable bubble under the sea.

  The continuous sound of grains falling echoed loudly in his ears despite Alōs’s best efforts to ignore the intricately carved sandglass on his desk. Time lost. Hope lost.

  The worst of it was that he was to blame for this race against time. Though he hadn’t realized the exact consequence of his actions then. He’d been merely a young boy desperately looking for a solution, a fix for an outcome he couldn’t bear—his younger brother’s death.

  It was springtime in Esrom when Ariōn was born. A time filled with festivals and parties and music in the streets. The palace was abuzz with merriment at the news of the young prince, yet deep in the royal chambers, a somber mood lay hidden. Ariōn had been born too early, too frail, and would not take to his mother’s breast.

  Alōs stood beside his father as they kept watch on the queen in her bed, the small bundle of the new prince in her arms. She sang a soothing lullaby to the babe. For two nights she did not stop even as the tune grew more haunting, sands slipping away. Alōs watched his younger brother’s brown skin grow pale. But it seemed Ariōn had been born with the queen’s strong heart, for on the third day he finally turned and latched on to suckle.

  That was the first and only time Alōs would see his mother cry.

  Yet despite Ariōn’s fragile beginning, he persevered. He grew from babe to child to young man, all while ignoring his quickly shortened breaths after the smallest of exertions. Nothing as trivial as fatigue would stop Ariōn from convincing Alōs to partake in every sort of mischief. Ariōn was able to laugh and joke and radiate a light stronger than his future could hold. And Alōs was deeply in love with him.

  It was on Ariōn’s eleventh birthday that Alōs saw the change. His brother’s smile did not quite reach his eyes as they sat opening his gifts. Nor did he touch his cake, which was his favorite: cherry blossom filled with lemon icing.

  Later that night Alōs slipped from his rooms to go to his brother’s, only to find his parents there first. A chill washed over Alōs as he took in his mother and father huddled over Ariōn’s bed, a healer beside them. He listened by the doorframe to his brother’s wheezes as the healer spoke the words that would send the first nail of life’s cruelty into his heart.

  “I am sorry, Your Graces, but nothing can be done.”

  “That cannot be true,” insisted Tallōs. “This is Esrom; we have islands full of rare plants to heal all illnesses.”

  The medic looked like it pained him to continue but said, “Yes, but not this kind.”

  “You say it is called Pulxa?” asked his mother while placing a hand on his father’s shaking shoulder.

  “Yes, my queen, a rare blood disease.”

  “How are we just learning of this now?” Tallōs began to stalk the room.

  “It can disguise itself for a long while,” explained the healer. “Especially if those who suffer its pains do not report any ailments.”

  Tallōs’s gaze whipped to the man. “Do not blame my son for you and your staff failing in your duties to find out about this sooner!”

  The medic grew red. “Your Grace, I apologize; that was not my meaning.”

  “We understand,” said the queen, gazing down at her son. “Ariōn is a proud soul. He does not like to burden others. But I agree with my husband. We are a kingdom of miracles. There must be something. And if not here, surely a solution can be found in all of Aadilor.”

  The healer rubbed his lips together, appearing to grow more uncomfortable. “Pulxa can be slowed, yes, but inevitably . . .”

  “Go on,” coaxed Alōs’s mother.

  “You see, it starts in the limbs, Your Majesties, before working its way toward the heart, destroying everything as it goes. And I fear the young prince has it very close to his heart by now.”

  Alōs turned from the scene then, a ringing filling his ears, his own heart stopped as he sought the only people he had been taught could conjure miracles. Alōs went to find the High Surbs.

  They sat imposing in their fine cloaks and high-backed chairs within their holy receiving room. Each gazed down their nose at Alōs, who stood before them, desperate and pleading.

  “We cannot stop the will of the lost gods,” said High Surb Fōl.

  “Nor can we keep what the Fade wants.” High Surb Zana shook her head. “That sort of magic is forbidden.”

  “It would be a tragedy to lose your brother,” High Surb Dhruva added, her face shining with youth. “But the Karēk line is still safe with you.”

  “Is that all you care for?” Alōs yelled, hands balling into fists at his sides. “That at least our lineage can go on?”

  “You are too young to understand now.” Dhruva looked at him with pity. “But with time, you will understand why it is important. Those that are worthy of the crown in Esrom are few. The Karēks are the only royal family in Aadilor to have been present when the lost gods were still among us. It is necessary we preserve that history. That magic.”

  “And what if I were gone as well? What would you do then with your precious history and future?”

  The High Surbs shared a glance before Dhruva spoke again. “But you are not going anywhere, Prince Alōs. You are destined to be our king. We understand the grief you—”

  “You understand nothing of my grief! All you understand is upholding laws that no longer have meaning here. The world is changing. Our people leave to explore Aadilor every day, bringing back stories of what lives above us. But all you spout in your lessons is useless history. Do you even remember how to wield your gifts? Or have you grown as lazy as the arses that have molded to your chairs!”

  The room rang out with offended gasps, but Alōs cared little as he stormed out.

  As their chamber door shut behind him, an echoing click of finality, he screamed, shooting out bolts of his magic and shattering the ancient ceramic statues lining their entry hall. They were depictions of the lost gods. Hōlarax: god of fortune. Phesera: goddess of love. Yuza: goddess of strength. Precious history easily destroyed.

  What use was it to believe in gods who had abandoned them? They could not lend mercy now, could not help a people said to be their favorite children. Alōs shook, desperate to destroy more precious items, for the lost gods seemed to be doing the same to his brother.

  “Your Grace.”

  A quiet voice had Alōs turning away from his destruction, his breaths coming out heavy. Surb Ixō stood by a corner at the end of the hall. Alōs did not know Ixō well, only knew he was the same age as he, eight and ten, and not yet a High Surb. “I think I can help.”

  Alōs followed Ixō into a hidden room, where the surb quickly explained there might be a way to save the young prince, but at a cost.

  “I will do anything,” said Alōs. “Anything.”

  Ixō then told of the real reason the High Surbs were desperate to keep a Karēk on the throne: his family’s blood was so intricately tied to the magic in the kingdom that they
feared what would happen to all the spells protecting the land if their family were to perish.

  “I don’t understand.” Alōs frowned. “What does that have to do with saving my brother?”

  “The way to save him is to get rid of you.”

  “Me? So . . . I must die?”

  “Not exactly.” Ixō shook his head, his expression grave. “But you would have to commit a sin so horrible that you’d be excommunicated, erased from the family line, making your brother the sole heir to the throne. With your parents too old to sire another child, the High Surbs would be forced to keep him alive by any means necessary, even the forbidden magic they fear.”

  A life trade, thought Alōs.

  Perhaps it was his fate calling, the beginning of the thief he’d eventually turn out to be, for Alōs hardly had to think on the matter before he found himself agreeing.

  Later that night he set out to steal the most valuable item in the kingdom.

  Alōs blinked back to his captain’s quarters aboard the Crying Queen, his shoulders tight at the memories that had overtaken him.

  He had believed then that his banishment, never seeing his family again, would be the worst sentence he’d ever face; he would later learn that the price for disrupting the balance of the Fade was much, much steeper. And the countdown to Esrom’s surfacing and exposure was merely one part of it.

  Over the years Alōs had traded his heart for one that pumped hollow. If he was to be marked as a villain in Esrom, he might as well play the part in Aadilor.

  In the end, his brother’s life had been saved, and that was all that truly mattered. He would have stolen the Prism Stone again and again to ensure it.

  Alōs merely missed the early days of idly sailing the Crying Queen with only the next pillage on his mind. Of drinking with his crew and exploring all the pleasurable corners of Aadilor. His life was never meant to be easy after leaving Esrom, but it had at least been enjoyable.

  Since Ixō had given him the news a year ago of Esrom’s magic drying out, he was no longer enjoying anything.

  A knock rapped against his door, pulling Alōs’s attention away from his windows.