Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2)

by Kelly St Clare

  The chief gathered Aroha close to his chest. “Restrain her.”

  The searing tingle of the dynami pulsed against her stomach, and Ebba, deciding it was time to kick tribe butt, drew the magical cylinder out of her beaded skirt, holding it high in the air. The first person that came near this door was going to have a headache the size of Kentro when they woke.

  With a high-pitched battle squeak, Sally left the shelter of Ebba’s hair and blazed white light through the marae.

  Ebba stood waiting for the tribespeople to rush her, dynami in hand and tiny, glowing creature hovering by her head. “Come and get it, ye tree-huggin’ motherfishers!”

  Their reaction stole her thunder somewhat. The warriors shouted and scrambled back, tripping over each other and landing in a pile of limbs and spears. The women and elderly pressed themselves flat against the marae walls. Even the chief took a step back, dragging Aroha with him. The stunned faces of the tribespeople weren’t really in line with the bloody fight she’d been about to launch into. Actually, their reaction made things a little awkward. Maintaining a good level of outrage when no one was giving her anything was hard.

  Her mother shook free of her husband and gazed upon Ebba like she was some kind of mythical creature. Her mouth opened and closed several times until she broke from her trance long enough to shift her eyes to Sally and then to the dynami in Ebba’s fist.

  Clearing her throat, Ebba decided to forge ahead. “So, I will be freein’ my fathers, grabbin’ the purgium and heading back to Felicity.”

  Aroha nodded. “Ae.” She unfroze enough to take a few steps closer, searching Ebba’s face. “Yes, you must do that.”

  “The lot o’ ye are cooked. Ye know that, don’t ye?” Ebba mused.

  The marae was quieter than it had been all night. In fact, the night outside seemed quiet, too. Empty of something. . . .

  Her eyes rounded, her heart hitting the floor with a horrified thud. Cosmo had stopped screaming.

  “Where’s the purgium?” Ebba reached out and shook her mother. “I need it now.”

  Aroha’s face tightened, and her green eyes darted side to side. “Nikora, pick five warriors. You will come with us to get the purgium.”

  “Is it really her?” the chief asked, doubt evident in his voice.

  Aroha snapped off a reel of tribe talk in reply, and he fell quiet.

  Why had they changed their minds so suddenly? Ebba liked to think she was a bit intimidating. Sally wasn’t at first—excepting the surprise factor of her glowing magic juju—but if they’d gotten to the fighting part, the sprite would’ve shown the tribe the danger of underestimating her. Other than that, there had only been the dynami in Ebba’s hand. And that looked like a tube, just with the swirly stuff underneath and the letters etched in the looping font down the side.

  What had changed Aroha’s mind and made the others trip over themselves to get away? Because it sure as water on a sinking ship wasn’t love for her stolen daughter. Something smelled like fish and garlic sauce to Ebba, but she wasn’t one to turn away from a good thing. It hardly made pirate sense to do so, no matter if there was a great deal of weird to the sudden uptick in her fortunes.

  Ebba scanned the gathered warriors and her mother. Shrugging, she turned and jogged down the marae stairs. She paused at the bottom to listen. Cosmo had definitely stopped screaming. Her chest tightened. She hadn’t expected him to stop screaming so soon.

  If Ebba couldn’t get the purgium within the next two hours, Malice would arrive, and Cosmo’s wouldn’t be the only life lost this day.

  The warriors milled behind her, and Ebba took off running around the back of the marae.

  “You already know where it is, daughter?” her mother asked, jogging beside her.

  Back to daughter, was it? Ebba grunted. “Nay.” She’d been right though. The purgium was in the forest behind this building. Ebba would have to thank Pillage when she got back to the ship. If she got back to the ship.

  “Then where are you going?”

  Ebba gripped the dynami, the pieces of her heart, and then reached for her resolve with both hands. “To free my fathers.”

  Seventeen

  “Ebba, what’s goin’ on? We heard the shouts.” Grubby was first to spot her through the darkness with his sharp eyes.

  “Malice be comin’ for the purgium. They’ll kill the entire tribe if it ain’t handed over within two hours.”

  “Less now,” Aroha corrected with a tight expression. She stared at the filthy row of her fathers against the prison wall, her arms folded.

  Her fathers ignored her for the most part, focusing on Ebba.

  “What be the plan, little nymph?” Plank asked.

  She looked at their hopeful faces.

  She remembered what they’d said earlier that day. About how they’d changed their lives for her. How they’d known after one day that she was too precious to be handed to Mutinous Cannon.

  In her heart, Ebba didn’t want to be without them and Felicity—even Pillage. A small, distant piece of her could admit she didn’t really like to talk about the worst parts of herself and her worst memories. It made sense they wouldn’t either. That didn’t excuse that they’d never told her about her past. But then, she hadn’t asked, had she? Perhaps because of not wanting her fathers to feel one was more loved than the others. Or had Ebba known deep down she wouldn’t like the answer?

  She both loved and detested her fathers right now. Ebba thought it might be possible to always love and hate her fathers for what they’d done. To always exist in limbo, between the loyal crew they were and the current feeling they were complete strangers. That sounded like a fate worse than death; to always wish she’d never discovered the truth of where she’d come from because it made her question the love and trust within her family. Ladon might have created cracks in the pedestal on which she placed her fathers, but her fathers had shattered the pedestal all by themselves. She didn’t know how to fix it. Not yet. But to Ebba’s way of thinking, there was only one way to know if attempting to fix things was even worth it, or whether their family was irreversibly damaged.

  With a warning glance at her blood mother, Ebba passed the dynami through the bars into Grubby’s hands. “I’m goin’ to get the purgium. I need to heal Cosmo with it afore the tribe gives it up to Malice.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Aroha jerk.

  Ebba stared at her hands and gathered her breath. “If ye had the dynami, and I were kidnapped by someone . . . would ye hand the dynami over to them?”

  The six pirates stared at her and then burst into conversation at the same time.

  “—What kind of questions is that—”

  “—I’d give them my last eye—”

  “—‘Course we would; we’d give them anythin’ they asked—”

  “—I’d shoot every single one o’ yer other fathers to keep ye alive—”

  Ebba and the others turned to stare at Peg-leg, who shrugged, saying, “Sorry, lads. It be true.”

  Locks scratched his chin. “Aye, I’d probably do that, too.”

  It was as though a force dragged her eyes to Aroha against her will. They were the words Ebba had expected to hear from her blood mother’s lips. The words she would’ve expected her to utter almost eighteen years ago when pirates took her baby.

  Aroha’s rounded gaze landed on Ebba’s fathers. She tilted her paled face, and Ebba caught the flicker of shame there before the chief’s wife turned away. Seeing it gave Ebba no small degree of satisfaction, and—if she was honest—hurting her blood mother was satisfying too. If Aroha and the chief had shown Ebba that they valued her more than a magic object, maybe she could have stayed here and been happy. Family came before sacred voodoo. Her fathers knew that much.

  . . . Now she just had to follow the same mantra.

  Spinning to the forest, Ebba waved over her head. “Come on, then. We need to get the healin’ thing.”

  “Ye want us to come with ye?” Stubby call
ed after her.

  No, not entirely. “Would I be invitin’ ye otherwise?” She turned at the forest edge, arms crossed. Hopefully the scowl on her face warned them that any further questions on the matter would result in an earful and a sore shin.

  As it was, Ebba swore she could see Grubby’s toothy beam from here. Dynami in hand, he gently nudged the wall. The latticed latch flew free of the prison hut, making Aroha and the small group of warriors scatter with a shout. If any of her other fathers had done that, Ebba might’ve said they’d done it on purpose to get back at Aroha.

  But not Grubby, surely. . . .

  Each of her fathers cast furtive glances her way as they joined her, but none of them reached for her, and none of them spoke about the decision she’d just made. So much had changed in such a short time.

  “This way,” Aroha said, holding a torch aloft. She ducked under a towering fern and disappeared into the bush.

  The six warriors split into two groups, three standing on either side of Ebba and her fathers. They escorted them to a barely noticeable path just left of where she and Jagger had emerged earlier.

  Aroha stopped sooner than expected, in the midst of thick foliage.

  “We’re there already?” Ebba asked, glancing around. Where was it?

  “We keep our sacred objects close by,” was her answer.

  “No kiddin’. I never would’ve looked seventy feet past the . . . .” She peered back to the huts. “. . . kitchens.”

  The woman shrugged with a small smile. Ebba’s eyes landed on the ground. “Where is it then? Under a rock?”

  “Not quite,” Aroha said drily.

  Nikora pushed aside the long leaves of a fern, revealing a slanting tunnel. The low tunnel only extended seven feet or so before ending in solid rock. A hidden entrance?

  Three of the warriors approached the rocky dead-end, the width of the tunnel only just allowing them to stand shoulder to shoulder. They grunted as they pushed at a heavy stone until the slab opened inwards. When they’d managed to expose the entrance completely, Aroha gestured them back and entered.

  Ebba ducked through after her.

  Glowing circles dotted the ceilings of the dark tunnel, and she gasped in awe.

  “Glow worms, little nymph,” Plank said in a quiet voice, walking behind her.

  Droplets of water clung to the sides of the tunnel, dripping to the floor at random. Overhead, the ceiling of the cramped passage was almost entirely covered in the glowing insects. Even Sally poked out her head to look around as Ebba carefully made her way through the tunnel.

  The cave descended sharply, and their group picked their way down the slippery stone steps cut into the tunnel floor. Ebba chafed at her arms as the temperature plummeted.

  Eventually the slope began to flatten.

  “Wait,” Aroha instructed as they spilled into a long and narrow room with a low rocky ceiling. They watched as the woman felt her way along a wall, and soon a second torchlight flared to life, fully illuminating the space. Ebba gasped at the hundreds of rudimentary drawings covering all four walls of the underground chamber.

  Their mission was dire and time never tighter, yet Ebba found her eyes scanning the walls covered in white paint, the images so old that moss had grown in the places the paint didn’t touch.

  “This must be done first,” Aroha instructed. She removed a flat piece of greenstone from the waist band of her beaded skirt. The greenstone was about half the size of an oar, with a short, stubby handle. If Ebba had known what the woman planned to do with it, she would’ve attempted to stop her.

  Aroha started at the far end of the wall and, with both hands, dug the blunt end of the greenstone into the moss. She walked alongside the length of the wall, scraping the greenstone all the way through the horizontal midline of the moss to scour a line through the beautiful etchings on the wall.

  A warrior handed her a bucket of red paint and what looked like a mini broom, and Aroha went back over the line she’d created through the middle of the wall, striking a red line through the paintings.

  “Why are you ruinin’ them?” Ebba burst out.

  Aroha replied calmly, moving to the next wall to repeat the process. “Because the path is now set. None of the rest matters.” Second wall done, she drove the greenstone down the third wall, but when she came to a painting in the middle, Aroha left the part untouched, continuing her scraping and painting destruction on the other side of the drawing.

  Ebba walked closer to the sole untarnished drawing as Aroha placed the paint and brush on the ground.

  The light from the torch was dim, but the small hairs at the back of Ebba’s neck prickled as she looked upon the picture. A graceful woman had been painted there. Her arm was raised, fist clutched around a long object that shone—though not as brightly as the glowing ball of light by her head on the other side.

  Ebba swallowed, unease stirring in her gut.

  “What is it?” Grubby asked.

  “Rather looks like a flamingo to me,” Barrels said. “I saw one in my youth at a traveling circus on Exosia.”

  Aroha turned from the wall to look at her, but Ebba couldn’t shift her eyes from the drawing. “It be me,” she said hoarsely. “How?”

  A snort from Peg-leg made her jump. “That ain’t ye, Ebba.”

  Ebba finally shifted her eyes to her blood mother’s. “How did ye know that was goin’ to happen?”

  The woman gestured around the gloomy, dripping room. “I didn’t. We did not know which path the purgium would take.” Her eyes shone. “My daughter is the chosen guardian of the purgium. You bring our tribe great pride and honor.”

  “Wait a darn minute,” Stubby said. “What’s happenin’?”

  Licking her lips, Ebba found her wits again. “This just happened,” she told her fathers. “Just like the picture. I had the dynami raised in one hand, and Sally was up on my other side. This paintin’ . . . told the future.”

  Her head throbbed painfully.

  Locks whistled low. “That be a creepy, creepy thing.”

  “Aye.” Plank nodded. “Makes me shiver like Davy Jones be breathin’ down my neck.”

  Barrels surveyed the painting with doubt, and Ebba herself thought she might do the same if not for remembering the terrible silence outside that had told her Cosmo didn’t have much time.

  “We’ve got to get movin’,” she said shakily. Her mangoes were about to fall out of her basket. They would unless she focused on the here and now and not the thousands-of-years-old painting of herself. “Cosmo ain’t got long left,” she said in a firmer voice.

  Aroha handed her the torch. “The way is through there.” She pointed to the short wall on the opposite side. “No one has been past this room in my lifetime, daughter. No one has been through there in more than seven-hundred and sixty-eight years. But many of our legends tell of the dangers awaiting any who move past this point. You will not get to the purgium as easily as you got to this room. You must prove your worthiness.”

  “Ain’t ye comin’?” Ebba asked. “Ye seem to know more about this voodoo stuff than anyone else.”

  The woman lifted her face and stared at the drawing. Ebba followed her gaze to the nine stick figures who stood at Ebba’s feet. Six of the stick figures were close, and three others, farther away, held spears. Aroha turned to the warriors. “Will any of you travel with my daughter to claim the purgium?”

  Three of the warriors raised their spears above their heads, Nikora included.

  Barrels narrowed his eyes at the ten figures on the picture and the, now, ten of them who would enter the next tunnels. “Still not buying it,” he muttered.

  Ebba didn’t blame him.

  With a tilt of her head to the picture, Aroha raised a brow. “I would be overcrowding you, it seems. My tribe needs me tonight. For the first time in my life, I am not guardian of our sacred object, nor bridge between two realms. I am free to fight for those things that all mortal beings do.”

  And still the blubb
ering woman wasn’t choosing Ebba.

  Ebba stepped back as Aroha made to cup her face. “The painting on the wall is plain: I am not meant to continue with you,” the tribeswoman said.

  “But why is there a paintin’ on the wall to begin with? Who painted it?” Ebba asked. She watched her mother closely.

  Aroha lifted a shoulder. “I am merely the guardian of this sacred object. I protect this object on the Earth Mother’s behalf. All I can tell you is that there were many possible paths, but now the path is clear, and you and your . . . companions are meant to walk it,” she said, her eyes moving over the six fathers and the three warriors. Her brows lowered. “I know nothing of where this path might lead other than that you are meant to retrieve the whakaora te wairua. The Earth Mother shares few of her secrets with mortals.”

  Great.

  Ebba turned her eyes back to the painting of her, Sally, her fathers, and the three warriors. If Ebba and her fathers were just one of the possibilities, how had they come to be here when none of the others in the numerous other paintings had?

  “The Earth Mother always has a plan,” Aroha said softly. “It is a rare day when we understand what such plans are.” She stepped back the way they’d come, green eyes hardening as she moved to the shadows. “Go, my daughter. Follow your path. Kia Kaha: stand strong.”

  Honestly? It didn’t seem so bad.

  Yes, the steps were getting steeper, and slipperier, and narrower. The ceiling lower, and damper.

  . . . Maybe it had become significantly spookier. The glowworms were down to a scattered few every few steps. Ebba had to wonder why the creatures, who otherwise preferred dark spaces, didn’t seem to like hanging out down here.

  The ten members of their group walked in single file. Stubby held the torch high at the front, navigating the dim path.

  He let out a shout and began to tip forward. Ebba lunged to grab the back of his tunic, letting out her own shout of alarm. His weight was too much, and it was only Locks grabbing onto her belt—and Stubby’s tunic holding together—that saved them.

  Ebba fell onto her butt, Stubby following suit on the step below.