Pillars of Six

by St Clare, Kelly

  “That’s better.” She sighed and bent to retrieve the dynami. She cast a sidelong gaze at the younger princess.

  “Got it,” Sierra said, patting the purgium.

  Ebba smiled tightly. “Good lass. Still there, Sal?”

  The sprite squeaked, jerking on the dreadlocks she held.

  They set off again, Ebba skimming the ground now that she was rid of her dress prison. She wasn’t sure how the princesses ran so fast with enough fabric to clothe the Pleo tribe twisting about their ankles, but they somehow were. Had to respect that.

  Grubby and Plank took the lead, setting a pace that the younger, albeit battered and bruised, members of their party struggled to keep up with.

  “I used the dynami to collapse a stairwell,” she puffed out. “We think it might’ve killed Pockmark and ten o’ his crew, includin’ Swindles and Riot. They were right behind him.”

  Caspian panted, hot on her heels. “They had plenty of time to get down to us on the first level, if they’d survived the collapse anyway. If they’re not dead, they were certainly trapped.”

  “The lot o’ them can rot,” Locks said between gasping breaths. “What else happened? I assume these be yer sisters, Cosmo.”

  The younger glanced back. “Cosmo your servant?”

  “I used his name when I was first picked up by Felicity to cover my identity.”

  “Caspian. Whatever,” Locks replied.

  “Yes, Locks, these are my sisters.”

  “Well, what happened in there?” Stubby interrupted.

  What happened? Two daughters and a son lost their father. The king had found the courage to look at the truth—and hadn’t killed Ebba when he could have. They’d escaped with Sally and the magical cylinders, maybe even a third. The pillars appeared to have overtaken the rest of piratekind and had overthrown the royal family. Their taint would now spread through the Exosian people. In mere weeks, if Verity was right, they’d have the power to transition from shadows to physical bodies and be almost unstoppable.

  Ebba shuddered, looking ahead at the weary and pale faces of the princesses. “We’ll tell ye back at the ship. Where be Barrels and Peg-leg?”

  Plank whistled, the sound shaking with his jolting steps. “Ye should’ve seen Peg-leg when we told him he were too slow to join.”

  Ebba winced. “Ye were foolish to tell him straight like that. Yer supposed to go in sideways so his pride can accept the loss o’ face.”

  Plank grunted. “Aye, but time were short. We had to make some hasty plans when the cannons started goin’ off. Malice got through the town and up the hill with no one any the wiser. No bells were rung or alarms sounded. We had no idea Pockmark and his crew were here, and could only be assumin’ until we saw them draggin’ the court people down to wagons.”

  “Wagons?” the eldest princess said, clutching her side.

  Plank glanced back. “Aye.”

  Caspian inhaled sharply. “They’re taking them to the coal mines. They’ll be slaves.”

  Stubby snorted. “If there be slaves already there, I say it’ll be good for their character to get a taste.”

  “No.” The heir was emphatic. “No slaves. The work is hard, but pays well. Many choose to work there of their own volition, but I doubt that is Pockmark’s plan,” he said, then corrected himself. “Or rather, the plan of the six pillars.”

  “Six pillars, aye,” Locks mused. “They’ve been busy recruitin’ from what we could tell. And I ain’t likin’ the look of the new recruits’ eyes. They look fair-black to me.”

  “Ye haven’t seen six shadows around, have ye?” Ebba asked, hoping she didn’t tempt fate by asking the question.

  “Nay, lass. I don’t know if I’d recognize them, though, havin’ never seen them. But we ain’t seen nothin’ like that,” Plank said.

  They’d recognize the shadows, all right. Or at least feel the malice emanating from them.

  “Nearly at the bottom,” Grubby called.

  Ebba was so happy to hear it she could’ve kissed the damn siren in that moment.

  “Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky the pirates took the court to the coal mines,” Stubby said between breaths. “If the pirates weren’t there, they’d surely be here. I was thinkin’ we’d have to fight our way to the wharf.”

  The ground flattened, and soon the stone town houses rose on either side. Ebba focused on placing one foot before the other, welcoming the slight breeze their jogging pace created as it cooled the bare skin on her arms. Sally had to be boiling hot under her dreads, but the sprite didn’t make a peep.

  “Are the others stealing Felicity?” she asked.

  “They were only to get Verity, Marigold, and her kin down to the wharf and wait for us to arrive,” Plank answered.

  “And did ye tell Peg-leg that was all he meant to do?” Ebba asked.

  “Aye,” Stubby said meekly.

  So he would’ve gone to get the ship back. Ebba rolled her eyes. They’d shared a ship with the cook for how long and still didn’t know how to manage his moods.

  Plank took one look back at them and called for everyone to slow to a walk. “We’re nearly there.” He gulped in air.

  “Jagger,” Caspian said suddenly.

  “What about him?” Ebba scowled.

  “He was with you in the cages. Where is he?”

  She shrugged, recalling the flaxen haired man’s silver eyes staring down at her in the night. “He scampered up the chains from the cages and disappeared. Ain’t seen him since.”

  “He brought Malice here,” Caspian said angrily. “He did this. He knew the dynami and the purgium were up at the castle. He’d been in the courtyard before. He could’ve told Pockmark exactly what to do and how to get in.”

  Ebba frowned. She could still feel Jagger’s arm about her waist as he heaved her through Malice to save her. Every moment where Jagger had appeared to do something bad, he’d had his reason. When he’d disappeared on Neos, it was to check on his tribe kin. He’d returned to Pockmark only to keep his family safe. He’d returned to Malice after saving the crew of Felicity on Pleo, knowing he’d be killed or that the taint might claim him. He’d done that to keep the magic cylinders from Pockmark, or so it seemed to her. When Jagger had disappeared up the chain instead of dropping into the crocodile-infested waters with them, Ebba hadn’t taken it personally. He was a pirate, even if he’d been raised in a tribe, and she understood that way of thinking. She would’ve done the same if their positions were reversed.

  Did she think Jagger would’ve gone back to Malice again? Not unless they had his family. But Caspian already had a reason to dislike Jagger—the pirate had been a breath away from killing him ever since they met. Or re-met. She still didn’t know what Jagger’s problem was.

  “We don’t be knowin’ that. Pockmark was only askin’ yer father about veritas.” She broke the silence Caspian’s vehement accusation had created.

  “I thank you, Mistress Fairisles, but I know just fine.”

  Caspian had lost his father tonight. Then at a time when he should’ve been preparing to become king himself, he’d been forced to abandon his people and flee his home like a gutter rat. Ebba liked to think she knew the heir well by now, and she knew he held honor and responsibility in high regard, even if he’d yearned to be free of both when they’d first met. When he’d asked to return to Exosia, Ebba saw that was the moment he made his choice about who he wanted to be, or the person he felt he had to be. And now, despite resigning himself to that life, he was being flung away like trash by the same pirates who’d killed those on the navy ship he once sailed upon; the same people who’d caused the injury that took his arm.

  Ebba kept her silence. He’d have time to sort things through once they were all safe. She’d help him.

  The shine of water when they made it to the harbor nearly brought a sob to her lips. The gentle lap of the waves against the shore was the call to come home. The jutting piers of the wharf were shadowed in the night and apparent
ly abandoned with not a person in sight. By the looks, the navy docked their smaller ships here.

  “Barrels,” Stubby hissed into the night.

  No answer.

  “Where the flamin’ hell are they?” Locks exploded. “I told him I was trustin’ him to care for Verity. If they—”

  A hand slid across his back, and Verity’s blonde hair swung against her back as she came to face Locks. “I care for myself. Have you learned nothing in eighteen years?”

  “Nothing,” he replied, pulling her into his arms.

  Gross.

  Marigold and four middle-aged men who looked like younger versions of Barrels joined them, a small army of children in their wake. Marigold’s children and grandchildren? Blimey, her sons had been drinking a whole heap of tea to make all those kids.

  “Over here,” a voice hissed.

  Ebba squinted and made out the forms of Peg-leg and Barrels ahead. She walked as quickly as her body would allow and fell into their arms.

  They were all together again.

  Now they had to get out of here. She’d seen the stones fall down on Pockmark and his crew, but she didn’t trust that meant he was dead. Not with the evil he’d carried within him for who knew how long. They had to leave before they were found. Ebba was more than ready to be away from this place. “Where is she?”

  “Felicity ain’t here,” Peg-leg said grimly. “We’ve searched the whole place twice.”

  Twenty-Three

  “Felicity’s gone?” Ebba asked, scanning the wharf despite Peg-leg’s surety. “That can’t be.”

  “I’m afraid it is, my dear,” Barrels said, rubbing his forehead. “And my cat with it.”

  Well, that was a win, in her eyes. And in the rest of the crew’s, too, by the looks.

  “Aye, that . . . be a right shame about yer cat. . . ,” Stubby said dispassionately, and sighed. “We’ll have to take another ship, lads.”

  Another ship? They couldn’t leave Felicity. Ebba had never sailed another ship. Felicity was family.

  Stubby wasn’t looking at her, though; he was peering past her at Plank as the others caught up. Ebba half-listened to their conversation, reeling. It probably shouldn’t mean so much to her. Except it did. It really did. In some ways, Felicity was her mother. The home of her heart. Still, she swallowed; her fathers were alive. Caspian and his sisters were here, and Barrels’ family. They had what they’d come for and more. That would have to be enough.

  “There be a sloop at the end o’ the wharf up ahead,” Peg-leg said.

  He led the way, and their mismatched group of royalty, pirates, and rich Exosians trailed after him. Caspian had pulled his elder sister into his side, where she cried silently. Marigold and her family were staring at the royal family as though they had three heads. Stubby was limping after their dash down from the castle. Ebba hadn’t even begun to think about what happened next. What happened now that the pillars ruled the realm, and pirates and Exosian landlubbers were slaves to the darkness?

  Peg-leg led them down the third jutting wharf, his wooden pin tapping loudly. He stopped at the very end. “This one.”

  Ebba wrinkled her nose at the white ship.

  “What sod in their right mind would be paintin’ a ship white?” Grubby asked.

  If he was thinking it, everyone was.

  “It’s all we’ve got,” snapped Barrels, clearly at the end of his tether, like the rest of them. “Get on board, and we’ll be away from this place. We have to find Pillage.”

  “Ahoy!” a voice boomed.

  They turned as one, like puppets in some morbid show.

  “I’ll be damned,” Locks whispered.

  Felicity drifted through the water toward them, her curved cedar edges sleek and as beautiful as the day she’d been taken by the navy.

  From the rigging hung . . . .

  “Jagger,” hissed Caspian.

  “He’s got Felicity!” Ebba said, waving a hand overhead at the pirate.

  A furious reeeeoow echoed toward her.

  “He’s got Pillage.” Barrels slumped in relief, pointing to where the ship cat prowled the bulwark.

  “And Pillage. Yaaay,” Ebba said weakly.

  Peg-leg sagged. “I’ve never been happier to see someone I dislike.”

  “How did he get our ship?” Stubby asked, a wrinkle between his gray brows.

  Ebba didn’t care how or why Jagger was here, just that he was. She wanted her ship, her hammock, her rigging, her hold. Before she’d been happy enough to kiss a siren, but now Ebba was thinking she might even be able to kiss Jagger. And that just showed how messed up her head was after Caspian’s romantic confession.

  He left the rigging to furl the sails and then returned to spin the wheel, bringing Felicity’s portside against the wharf with confidence. A grudging respect churned within her. The man could work a ship, she’d give him that. He ran to the bulwark and threw two lines out. Grubby and Plank caught the ropes and moved away to secure the ship, just enough so they’d be able to climb aboard without Felicity drifting away.

  “Where have ye been?” Locks called to the flaxen-haired pirate.

  “Been hidin’ here for days, waiting for a chance to steal Felicity for when ye got to shore.”

  That sounded like a pirate truth to her, but he was here, so maybe she was judging him too hasty-like.

  “Did ye see me and Barrels fleecin’ the wharf?” Peg-leg asked.

  “Aye, I saw ye,” Jagger replied. “No point comin’ in until ye were all here.”

  “No point—?” Peg-leg’s face turned a ruddy purple.

  Barrels grimaced and rested a hand on the cook’s arm. “Let’s just be glad Jagger’s here now and had the foresight to anticipate our movements.”

  Once the lines were secured, Ebba reached out for the ship’s side and pulled Felicity closer. She prepared to spring into the ship, but Jagger leaned over and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her up.

  “Uh,” Ebba mumbled, meeting his silver gaze as he lowered her onto the deck. “Thanks?”

  He scanned her from head to toe, and his gaze darkened as he reached his fingers to the back of her head and they came away bloodied. Shaking his head, he moved away to help the others. Weird.

  Ebba stared at the deck, took two steps toward the mast, and then sank to her knees, a lump rising hard and fast up her throat. She lay down on her front on the deck and rested her cheek against Felicity, inhaling the smell of salt and cedar.

  “My ship,” she said, patting the deck.

  Ebba lay there, listening to Pillage’s harassed meowing and her fathers’ calls as they brought in the two lines and unfurled the sails to get the ship moving again.

  “Are you okay, my bird?” Marigold asked, resting a hand on Ebba’s bare back. Barrels’ sister gasped. “What happened to your shoulder?”

  Ebba thought back. Was it one of the two times she was hurtled through the air by the magical objects? Or. . . . “When I threw myself down the stairs, I think.”

  “. . . I see.”

  “Mmm,” Ebba hummed in reply. She was staying right here to pat the ship.

  “Is she okay?” Barrels dropped to her side, and Ebba groaned as the rest of her fathers came running.

  They were going to fuss.

  Ebba groaned and rolled onto her back, wincing at the new pressure on her head wound. She propped her arm under her skull to relieve the pain. “I be fine. I’m just happy to be away from that place and back on the ship.”

  Caspian was hugging both of his sisters close, stroking their hair. Marigold’s children and their families stood quietly, though wide-eyed. They’d grown up with Marigold for a mother and grandmother, so Ebba was pretty sure they’d be made of stern stuff.

  “Where are your clothes?” Marigold asked softly.

  Ebba moved her eyes to look at the woman. “Got rid o’ them. And I’m never wearin’ a dress like that again.”

  Marigold’s thin brows rose. “Like that?”

&nb
sp; Aye, like that. Maybe she’d consider a different dress. She was saved from explaining the comment as Verity moved in front of her and hovered her hands over Ebba’s body.

  “I’m okay,” she whined. Actually, each time Felicity slapped down into a trough, pain jolted through her entire body, but she’d take that with zero complaint.

  Verity ignored her, muttering under her breath.

  Caspian wobbled over to Barrels. “Is there a place I might show my sisters to rest?”

  “Certainly. Marigold, would your family like to come down into the hold, too?” Barrels answered, the ship cat clutched to his chest.

  Great. No hammock for her tonight, and the mainlanders probably wouldn’t even appreciate it. Ebba guessed she’d live. Maybe.

  She waited until their guests had disappeared through the bilge door to the sleeping quarters. “Hey, Verity? Just how powerful were ye afore the ship sucked it out o’ ye?”

  Verity fixed her periwinkle blue eyes on Ebba’s face, her hovering hands stilling. “Mildly powerful compared to what’s out there.”

  Ebba felt pinpricks on the side of her face and darted her eyes to Jagger. He glanced away when he saw she’d noticed his staring. He moved to check the sheets. Why was he acting so strangely?

  “What about compared to a little ol’ pirate?” she pressed.

  Verity appeared to deliberate before admitting, “Extremely powerful.”

  “And when ye said the ship was drainin’ yer powers. . . .”

  The soothsayer’s eyes shined brightly. “If you’re asking if I’m the reason the pillars are back, then yes. It is the destiny I chose.”

  Locks knelt at Ebba’s feet. “What do ye mean?”

  “When you came to me with the injured prince, I had to make a decision.”

  Ebba recalled the soothsayer peering into the mirror for an awfully long time. Was that what she meant?

  “I could let the prince die and let the world fall victim to the pillars. Or I could help you, help him, and become a victim myself, but be given a chance to love another. The pillars would rise sooner than they would have otherwise, but if I chose this path, darkness was not assured. In all other paths, the powers of the oblivion assured me it was so.”