The Storyteller

by Traci Chee

  Because if he’d asked her to help him locate the Amulet, she would have refused, and she didn’t think he’d forgive her for that.

  Silently, he handed her a cloak and jerked his head toward the hatchway.

  Taking the furs, she followed him up onto the main deck, where the cold bit into her cheeks and exposed hands. Shivering, she pulled the cloak around her shoulders as snowflakes drifted from the sky, covering the Current in a thin veil of white.

  The captain stopped at the rail, where he stared out at the black water for a moment. “So,” he said finally, “you want to leave.”

  She nodded.

  The captain rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish you wouldn’t go, kid. But it ain’t my place to stop you.”

  Sefia shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere, though. I can’t get Archer to leave.”

  Reed wouldn’t look at her. She could feel him counting. One, two, three, four . . . “Well.” He sighed. “I think I’ve got a way for both of us to get what we want.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Trove of the King

  If the legends about the labyrinthine caves of the Trove of the King were true, Captain Reed could have spent the rest of his life searching for the Resurrection Amulet, climbing echoing shafts, excavating tunnels, long collapsed, exhausting the remainder of his days in the cold dark of the earth.

  But Sefia had the Book, and the Book could lead her directly to the Amulet, sparing him years of searching. The thought had haunted Reed for weeks.

  The brave and the bold may find Liccarine gold

  Where the stallions charge into the spray.

  Where the sidewinder waits, the heart lowers its gates,

  And the water will show you the way.

  Every night, he would lie in his bunk, repeating the words of King Fieldspar’s riddle and tapping out counts of eight on his chest. With every passing second, they were closing in on Steeds, the first landmark. With every passing second, he was closing in on a dream that had consumed his every waking moment for years, driving him to greater and greater exploits in the attempt to live a life too epic to be forgotten, to make his name too memorable to ever die.

  But if he had the Amulet, he wouldn’t need adventures or a collection of tattoos and treasures to prove that he’d lived.

  He’d simply live. Forever.

  He wanted it so bad he could feel his own want pulsing like an ember in his chest, smoking in the morning when ice spiked the running lines and the frosted sails sparkled in the first light of dawn. The sea, the spray, the ship skimming the water, this could all be his for the rest of time.

  But if the Amulet was meant to lure Archer into fulfilling his destiny, could Reed live with the fact that getting the Amulet might cost Archer his life? Could he live with it forever?

  Then he heard Sefia wanted to leave the Current. She wanted to take the boy and go running into the dunes as soon as they dropped anchor.

  He’d be sorry to see them go. He remembered the night he’d discovered them on his ship: the Assassin leaping from the rails; the Executioner hot in his palm; Archer, breathing hard and bleeding from a dozen knife wounds; and Sefia, clutching the Book, telling him a story about magic and answers and revenge. They’d been good additions to the crew.

  But if Archer was gone, the Amulet would be no danger to him.

  “If you get me the Resurrection Amulet,” Captain Reed said, his breath clouding in the black night, “I’ll make sure Archer doesn’t set foot on this ship again. The crew will get their treasure. I’ll get the Amulet. And when we leave here, neither of you will be with us.”

  Sefia blinked. “You’d strand Archer with me?”

  Reed swallowed and nodded, rubbing the blank space at his wrist. “And I’d take the Amulet far away from both of you.”

  “But you haven’t told him this.”

  He scoffed. “You think he’d agree? It’s a mean, underhanded trick to pull on someone you love.”

  She was silent, still as a stone as the snow sugared her hair.

  Was Reed going to have to beg? He hadn’t begged for anything since he’d begged the former captain of the Current to let Jules, the runaway pearl diver with the voice like velvet, join their crew. Jules, who’d look at him now and tell him he was wrong to ask this. Jules, who was dead. Jules, whom the Amulet could’ve saved.

  “All right,” Sefia said finally, extending her hand. “He might hate me for this. But at least he’ll be alive.”

  Her fingers were ice cold when Reed gripped them.

  “Guess we got a deal, then,” he said, and the words did not give him the satisfaction he thought they would.

  The next morning, they reached Steeds. The oddly shaped headland was part of a series of capes and coves that dotted the Liccarine coast, the waters riddled with shallow channels and submerged rock formations that would rip holes in unsuspecting vessels. To complicate matters, the ebb and flow of the tide would change the landscape, allowing ships to pass into sheltered inlets at high tide and stranding them when the tide ran out, revealing and concealing cave entrances that dotted the sandstone cliffs.

  But the Trove was here somewhere. And in it, the Resurrection Amulet.

  Anchored in the deeper waters off the nose of Steeds, the outlaws surveyed the changing coastline. It would be dangerous to sail closer, but the ships could remain here while the sailors set off in the longboats, searching for the “sidewinder” from Fieldspar’s poem.

  Sefia and Archer began to pack for the solo expedition they would take into the Trove while Reed and the outlaws excavated the main caverns. Horse equipped them with rock hammers and a collapsible boat made from bamboo and sailcloth. Cooky plied them with provisions, including cakes for Sefia and packets of Archer’s favorite spiced nuts.

  “I’m glad you changed your mind,” Archer said, coiling one of their ropes.

  Reed caught Sefia’s eye, their plan unspoken between them, invisible and heavy as lead. “You were right,” she said, her voice a touch too light. “We stick to the plan. Haven’s just around the corner now.”

  Archer kissed her on the cheek.

  From the great cabin, the captain brought out an ebony box inlaid with stars of diamond and ivory. Lifting the lid, he took out a round rock, smooth as a pearl and slightly smaller than his palm. Through his fingers, the stone glowed with pale silver light.

  “The moonstone?” Sefia asked.

  “This is the first treasure I ever collected. I was sixteen, and the Current had just fished me out of the water, after . . .” He scratched his chest.

  “After my parents tattooed you with a page from the Book,” Sefia finished for him.

  “The moonstone will light your way when you’re in there.”

  Archer took the stone and slipped it deep into his pack. “Thanks, Cap.”

  The captain looked at him sadly. Poor kid. He didn’t deserve to be tricked.

  But, selfish as it was, Reed wanted that Amulet. And he wanted Archer to live.

  The captain tossed him another bundle of warm woolen clothing. “Be careful. You get wet and you’ll die of cold. Ain’t no way to warm up in there.”

  They were just organizing search crews when Aly leaned out from the crow’s nest, blond braids dangling over her shoulders. “Alliance ships, two points off the port bow!”

  “Aly!” Captain Reed lifted a hand.

  Drawing her arm back, she flung him the spyglass. It smacked into his palm, and he lifted it to his eye.

  Four blue vessels were sailing up from the south.

  He cursed. They were too exposed out here beyond Steeds—they’d be spotted as soon as the Alliance was close enough to see their sails against the sandstone cliffs. They couldn’t run, not this time. Their only hope was to sail for one of the protected coves and hope that neither the Current nor the Crux ran aground.

 
As he gave the orders, the crew leapt into action, pulling up the anchor, unfurling the sails.

  “There,” Reed said to Jaunty, pointing out a shallow channel between two arms of an inlet. “Can we get through without hullin’ ourselves?”

  The passage would be dangerous. But Jaunty was the best helmsman in the Central Sea. If anyone could get them through it, he could.

  Squinting at the water, Jaunty removed his hat and ran a hand through his dry, straw-colored hair. Then, with a noncommittal grunt, he turned the helm.

  The captain clapped him on the shoulder. “Good enough.”

  Killian of the larboard watch ran up a signal flag to tell the Crux to follow them, and then they were sailing past Steeds for the shelter of the cove, narrowly avoiding the stone columns that jutted through the waves and the underwater peaks that nearly scraped the bottom of their ship.

  Reed spared a glance behind them. The Crux was sailing gamely after them, with the Alliance vessels still approaching from the open water.

  Had the outlaws been spotted? Reed couldn’t tell. They’d be fish in a barrel if the Alliance wanted to attack them in the inlet.

  “Cap, in the water!” Meeks cried from the bow. “It’s the sidewinder!”

  Reed’s attention snapped forward again, but he could see nothing but the sandstone walls and turquoise water of the cove.

  “Below us!” The second mate pointed.

  The captain raced to the bowsprit, where he climbed into the branches, leaning out over the water. A meandering ridge of stone lay beneath them, sinuous and green in the blue water. At the end, a spade-shaped head seemed to sway from side to side under the waves.

  He grinned.

  The entrance to the Trove must be somewhere in the inlet. And they had only one more landmark to go.

  As they entered the cove, he ordered the crew to drop anchor and haul in the sails. His sailors clambered up onto the yards. The enormous squares of white canvas were furled, making the masts less visible to searching Alliance eyes.

  The Crux followed them, her hull scraping against the sidewinder’s uneven spine.

  Reed winced, imagining the hustle belowdecks as Dimarion’s crew raced to patch their ship.

  He could see the Alliance vessels out past Steeds, closer now. They weren’t headed inland, for the Current and the Crux. They were sailing north toward a small fleet both he and Aly had missed.

  He expected the ships to keep running. But they turned. They were fighting back.

  The outlaws were too far to hear the cannons, but they were close enough to see the smoke.

  Reed couldn’t believe it. Who was left in these waters to resist Stonegold and the Alliance?

  They watched the strange ships blast the Alliance until the winds shifted and the battle disappeared over the horizon.

  That night, Captain Reed and the outlaws drank to the resistance ships, whoever they were, and all their sailors, dead or alive.

  “You know,” he said to the chief mate when they’d retired to the great cabin, “since we left Jahara, I’d almost fooled myself into thinkin’ things were the same as they used to be.”

  The mate laughed harshly. “What voyage have you been on? Because the rest of us have been dodging Alliance patrols for a month.”

  Reed’s gaze flitted from one glass case to another, counting each of his treasures—the Thunder Gong, which was supposed to be able to summon and dispel a storm, only he’d never gotten it to work; the tooth of a sea serpent; the black box, now empty of the moonstone. “I know, but in between, it was easy to forget that the seas ain’t wild anymore. That we ain’t free as we used to be.”

  “Haven’s free.”

  “Haven’s a small island in a big ocean.”

  Wearily, the chief mate drew his square-fingered hand down his lined face. “Will that be enough for you, if the Alliance wins the war?”

  Reed didn’t answer as he finished counting the treasures and began again.

  * * *

  • • •

  There was a pall hanging over them the next morning as they piled into the longboats to scour the cliffs for the “heart” from Fieldspar’s riddle. The currents were perilous and the stone pillars seemed to rear up beneath them when they least expected it. More than once, they were almost dashed to bits against the rocky coast.

  Sefia had refused to use the Book to find the Trove’s entrance. “It’s dangerous enough using the Book at all, when it can manipulate us into doing whatever it wants,” she said. “Please don’t ask me for more.” But she and Archer joined them in the boats all the same, with their packs ready to go.

  The crews searched until their hands were blistered and their shoulders ached from rowing. They searched until night fell. And the next morning, they got in the boats and began their search again.

  It was Goro, the oldest sailor on the Current, who spotted the cave—a dark entrance shaped exactly like a human heart, with great cracks like arteries branching into the stone above.

  As the tide ran out, more and more of the entrance became visible, as if the heart were revealing itself to them, lowering its gates, just as the riddle had said.

  Reed’s pulse skipped. This was the way to the Trove of the King. This was the way he got the Amulet. This was the way he lived forever.

  “We got till mid-tide before that cave floods again,” he shouted, gripping his oars. “Let’s get that treasure!”

  Through the heart they rowed, into the vaulted cavern beyond.

  Inside, the water seemed to glow aquamarine beneath the high shadowed ceilings. At the back, there was a sort of stone dock with conical stalagmites, perfect for mooring boats, and beyond it rose a flat wall more than thrice Reed’s height.

  The crews of the Crux and the Current pulled up and disembarked, leaving one boat outside to watch the tide. Captain Reed ran to the wall, fanning his hands over its smooth surface, searching for seams.

  “You reckon this is the way in?” Meeks asked while Sefia, Archer, and Dimarion’s own group of treasure hunters unloaded their packs onto the shore. No matter, Reed thought.With so much other treasure to distract them, they wouldn’t get the Amulet. Not when Sefia had the Book.

  Dimarion shook his head. “Fieldspar said, ‘the water will show you the way.’ We must be looking for an underwater channel of some sort.”

  Reed pressed his palms to the wall. “No way the king squirreled away all his treasure through an underwater tunnel.”

  The pirate captain rolled his eyes. “By all means, continue hugging the wall. I’m sure we’ll find the Trove that way.”

  While Dimarion’s sailors began to strip off their shirts and boots, and others lit lanterns to illuminate the cavern, Frey knelt at the base of the wall, where the stone was still damp.

  Reed crouched beside her. “What’s that, kid?”

  Frey tucked a loose strand of hair behind her scarred ear and pointed. “Look, Captain.”

  Parts of the rock were the same burnt red as the rest of the chamber, but here and there were veins of gold that seemed to sprout from the floor like new shoots of grass.

  Reed grinned at her. The water will show you the way.

  Sefia, Archer, and Meeks were already dipping bailing buckets into the water and carrying them to the wall, where they emptied their contents onto the rocks.

  Wherever the water touched, the gold lines appeared, forming trellises and exquisite patterns in the stone.

  Captain Reed clapped Frey on the shoulder proudly. “Good job, kid!”

  She beamed at the praise.

  All of them, even Dimarion, flocked to the wall, flinging bucket after bucket of water onto the rock, until they had revealed a golden archway that nearly touched the ceiling.

  “Well, this seems promising,” the pirate captain said, wiping his brow with his silk scarf. “But how do we
open it?”

  “Here.” Meeks wet his hand and smeared it across the center of the wall. Beneath his fingers, the golden curves glistened more brightly:

  FOR THE WEALTH OF THE KING,

  THE BLOOD OF THE KINGDOM.

  Reed crossed his arms. They were so close, and King Fieldspar still had one more riddle for them. Again, he wondered if the man had been a Guardian and, if he was, why he would have hidden all that treasure from the Guard.

  The second mate sounded out the words silently while Sefia read them aloud. “Blood?” she wondered. “Is anyone here Liccarine?”

  Old Goro offered his weathered palm. “My mother was Liccarine.” Drawing his knife, he cut his hand. Blood welled along his lifeline, and he pressed it over the words.

  Nothing happened.

  Meeks shrugged. “Maybe we need someone who’s all Liccarine.”

  “Or perhaps,” Dimarion said thoughtfully, fingering a chain at his neck, “we need the true blood of the kingdom.” Light glinted off his necklace as he removed it.

  “Right.” Reed started forward eagerly, a tug in his chest drawing him toward the door and what lay beyond it. “The blood of the kingdom ain’t blood.”

  The pirate captain grinned at him. “The blood of Liccaro has always been gold.” With a flourish, he pressed the chain to the wall.

  With a groan, the golden arch split down the center, the two halves swinging inward, dislodging bits of dust and stone. Reed laughed as the shadows yawned before him, the lamplight touching on flashes of metal and precious gems.

  They’d opened the Trove of the King.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Crystal Globe

  The first cavern of the Trove was not only filled with gold and jewels, but also with huge stalagmites, evenly spaced in widening semicircles on the stone floor. Decades of water dripping from above had left streams of hardened sediment on their domes and curving sides, and to Sefia, they looked almost human, with helmets and sightless eyes, feet fused to the floor.