Seafire

by Natalie C. Parker

  “She’s more trouble than she’s worth,” Pisces said into Caledonia’s ear.

  Caledonia spoke just as softly. “No more than a Bullet.”

  Nettle raised her chin, projecting confidence. Her hair ties fluttered in the wind, and her dark eyes shone like the black scales of their sun sail. Her bravery was defiant but also calm. In spite of herself, Caledonia liked her.

  “Amina says these are good, and that’s the only thing saving your life right now,” she said. “You’ll stay aboard, live by our rules, but until you prove otherwise, you’re worth less to us than the barnacles on our hull. One wrong move and we trade you for a goat next time we find shore. Clear?”

  Nettle’s mouth struggled against a smile. “Clear.”

  Before Caledonia could assign someone to orient the girl to her new position on the ship, Amina stepped up. “I’ll show her to her bunk and her work. Anyone have issue with her, you have issue with me.”

  “Red, take Nettle’s gifts to Hime for inventory. And Amina, make sure she gets to work right away. The waste drain-line should be a good place to start.”

  For the first time, Nettle’s smile wavered in place. She knew exactly what that was, which meant not only did she know her way around a ship, but she knew exactly how bad this particular job smelled. Fifty-two girls were a lot to clean up after.

  “Consider it done, Captain,” Nettle said with less enthusiasm than she’d shown just a moment before.

  A few of the girls cheered, the ones who’d been on drain duty. If Nettle did well and finished the work on her own, she might gain a few easy allies.

  “Amina will tell me when she thinks you’ve earned your place.” Caledonia walked toward the young girl and stopped a foot away, testing her resolve. “I expect it will take a while.”

  Nettle stood with her back straight and her eyes up. Undeterred by Caledonia’s nearness. “You won’t be disappointed, Captain Styx. I’m here to help.”

  Caledonia spared a pointed look for Amina before leaving the deck. They weren’t fifty-two anymore. Between the boy in their hold and this clever girl, they were fifty-four. She tried to fix the number in her mind as she descended one level and took a meandering path to her quarters.

  There was still so much to do. They were traveling south instead of north, the repairs in their stern were patchy and needed more attention than they could give while under way, but she could feel her energy draining through the soles of her feet, puddling on the ground behind her as she walked. Food would be good, but by the time Caledonia finished a round of level two, she was all but dead on her feet. Her path ended at her chamber doors, and there was nothing, not even this piercing hunger, that could pull her away to the galley.

  It didn’t matter. Inside her cabin, she found a plate of food waiting for her—a thin slice of bread, a scoop of something green, and a small wedge of seed brick. Only a few bites in all, but they were bites she didn’t have to work for. She would have to thank Far for her thoughtfulness later. For now, she needed rest.

  She stripped, showered, and forced herself to stand upright while she scrubbed her teeth before hitting her bed. She fell asleep with her mind casting a line in their wake.

  Somewhere behind them, the Bale Blossom sat amid dark waters, awaiting the return of its ships. Caledonia’s mind lingered there, trying to conjure an image of what Lir must look like now, but over and over again all that surfaced was the boy from four years ago: the boy with a sun-stained nose and one ear that stuck out a little too far, who had smiled softly as he drove his knife into her belly.

  There was no doubt in her mind that running had been the right choice. They’d been outnumbered, pinned in port, and a fight would have cost them all very dearly, but here in the dark of her cabin she let her disappointment burn. It was a wound in her gut that would never heal.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Caledonia felt as though she’d slept for days when she finally peeled herself out of bed. Sounds of the ship in full swing filtered through the hallways. The rumble beneath her feet told her the ship sailed sure and steady.

  She opened her cabin door to find Nettle leaning against the opposite wall, a plate of food in her hands. She perked up immediately, sloshing hot teaco over her hands and cursing as she regained balance.

  “Captain. Good morning. Well, afternoon. Sun’s been going for a long while.”

  Caledonia reached for the mug first, giving herself a good long sip while Nettle clearly tried not to squirm. “Nettle. What are you doing here?”

  Nettle held the plate out in response. “Lunch. Well, it’s sort of dinner now. Amina told me to sit right here until you stirred and then make sure you put something in your belly. So, I sat right here and when I heard you moving, I ran down to the galley. Far says she’ll only accept an empty plate in return.”

  Small as it was, the meal was still larger than it should have been for a single portion, but there wasn’t a girl on the ship brave enough to send food back to Far. Caledonia wolfed it down and sent the empty off with Nettle.

  By the time she made it topside, the sun was sliding west and the end of the canals was in sight. Ahead, the seas were wide, with no towering walls to squeeze their skies, no perilously shallow channels lurking beneath. Behind them, the waters were empty and silent; no Bullet ships trailed in their wake. In no time, the Mors Navis would be cutting through open waters, and Caledonia breathed deeply of the salt-fresh air. For the moment, they were free and clear.

  Tin came forward with a ship’s report. Her spiked brown hair had been scrubbed, and she looked well-rested and alert as she began to run down the list.

  “And, finally, vitals,” Tin said, coming to the end of her reporting. “If we keep to this rationing, we’ve got stock to hold us for five days. I recommend reducing speed and dropping nets for a while.”

  Five days. On seas that were entirely foreign to them, five days was far from comfortable. But Tin’s recommendation was a good one. “Bring us to a stop before we leave the cliffs. We’ll need the cover if we’re going to have any luck with the nets. Dispatch the bow boats to scout for signs of trouble. We can spare an hour, maybe two, but then we need to move.”

  The ship slowed, and a team got to work unrolling the fishing nets and readying them for the water. Caledonia found the rest of the Mary sisters stringing lines and hanging laundry beneath the sun sail with a song on their lips. Redtooth had a small group of girls spread across the bow, their guns in pieces, their fingers shiny with oil as they scrubbed the powder from their barrels.

  She found Amina and Hime on one side of the rear deck, legs draped over the starboard rail, feet knocking together in the wind. They peered down every so often at Nettle, now harnessed and dangling to repair some of the heavier bullet damage. They leaned toward each other, cradling the conversation of their hands with their bodies.

  With so much activity on deck, the levels below were thinly populated. The cargo bay was quiet, as it should have been this time of day. But when Caledonia arrived, she found the door to the hold slightly ajar. She rushed across the room, afraid she’d find the hold empty, the Bullet missing and at large on her ship. But what she found instead was infinitely worse.

  The boy was still there. Hands bound. His body curled tightly in the center of the room like a shell. His brown skin was pale and shiny with sweat, his clothes soaked with the same, and sitting with his head cradled in her lap was Pisces.

  She looked up when Caledonia entered. Their eyes locked. Pisces tensed but didn’t get up. Instead, she looked defiant, defensive, all over this dissolving boy on the floor. On the ground sat an empty cup and a small teapot. A gentle breeze floated through the open porthole, loosening the stale clutch of air.

  Seeming to sense something had changed in the room, the boy’s eyelids fluttered open. He spotted Caledonia and froze.

  “Out,” said Caledonia.

 
Pisces pressed a hand to the boy’s arm, then carefully slid her legs out from beneath him, gathered the cup and teapot from the floor, and stood. She moved without haste, as if to defy Caledonia with every step she took. It was a small rebellion, but one Caledonia wouldn’t forget.

  The boy’s gaze darted to Pisces as she crossed the threshold. Caledonia didn’t give her the opportunity to look back before pulling the door shut on her heels. It wouldn’t lock from this side, but she didn’t need security. She needed privacy.

  She gave herself two slow breaths to calm her blood. She focused on the state of the room. Someone had brought him more than teaco over the past days. There was a thin blanket, a dirty plate, and a carafe of fresh water.

  Drenched and still shaking through his withdrawal, the boy forced his long body to uncurl. He sat up now, straining through his pains, and met her gaze with one more present than before. His brown eyes were ringed like the inside of an ancient tree. Surely the most notable thing about him.

  “You survived.” She leaned against the stacked bolts of canvas near the door, considering him with arms crossed. He looked weak, but she would never underestimate a Bullet. She kept her hand near her gun.

  “Some of me.” His voice carried the sand of too little sleep and long-distant screams. He smiled dimly. “Feels like there’s still a little left.”

  “Bullets aren’t made of much to begin with.”

  It was hard to tell if the sound he made was a groan or a laugh. “We’re made of the same stuff as you. It just gets distorted.”

  “Distorted? You press children into service, slaughter families by the score, and you call that a distortion?” Caledonia felt her anger gaining quick ground over her sense. She’d come here for information, not a fight.

  The boy shivered where he sat. “It’s the only word I have for what happens to us.”

  Us. Them. The group that now included her brother. Suddenly, it was Pisces’s voice in her head, telling her that if she wanted to believe their brothers had survived, she had to believe this boy might have, too. But this boy was nothing like her brother.

  “You know, you might have survived if we’d dropped you in the shallows. You were beyond his reach. But you stayed on my ship. You knew there was a bounty on it and you stayed.”

  “I’m not made for just surviving.”

  It was almost laughable coming from the boy sweating his way through an illness second in intensity only to the Pale Fire. “What are you made for, then?”

  Now he smiled, grim and stubborn. “Fighting back.”

  A glimmer of the boy he must have once been was tucked into the corner of that smile, and for a brief second, Caledonia pitied what he’d gone through to become a Bullet.

  “How many ships accompany Electra?” she asked.

  “None.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He nodded as though he’d been expecting this. “Electra sails alone. Her hull is her greatest defense, and the Northwater is so sparsely populated they never have to worry about attack. But beyond that, she sails alone to demonstrate Aric’s perfect control of the region. It’s as much a mind game as it is conscription.” When he finished, he closed his mouth and watched her. Shivers occasionally stirred his shoulders, but his eyes remained firm. Caledonia turned this new information over in her head.

  “There’s something else,” he said after a minute. “Something you need to know.”

  Caledonia’s eyes narrowed. “Every time you volunteer information, I trust you less.”

  His jaw clenched around what might have been a grimace or a smile. “I’ll wait, then.”

  It was the first thing he’d said that teased a smile onto Caledonia’s lips. At least he wasn’t delusional.

  The boy caught sight of her smile, and his whole body stilled. His eyes lingered on her mouth, his own lips curling so faintly she almost missed it. It occurred to her then that this boy wasn’t dissolving, he was consolidating; as the Silt left his blood, he was rediscovering his edges. Soon, he would rediscover his strength. And looking at him now, Caledonia realized that strength would be considerable. His frame was dense with muscle, and his moves against Redtooth had been enough to show just how agile and competent he was in a fight. It was even possible he’d been holding back. Struggling just enough to buy time without hurting anyone.

  “I will convince you to trust me,” he said at last.

  Caledonia laughed, harsh and only once. “The day I trust a Bullet to do more than die is the day the sea turns to stone.”

  This time he didn’t speak. Caledonia had more questions. She needed to know when the optimal time to strike the Electra was, and she needed ship schematics and to know where their brothers were likely to be located. But she’d bent her trust as far as it was willing to go for one day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was early dinner hours, and the galley was a flood of noise. As Caledonia approached, she heard shouts and laughter and teasing. It was always hot in here by midday, with the stoves fired up and plenty of bodies to raise the temperature. At the moment, the heat was a perfect match for Caledonia’s mood.

  In the center of the room, the rounded post of their mainmast took up a wide circumference of space. On either side were the kitchen and room for tables and chairs, which were stored and secured whenever they weren’t in use. In rough seas, a loose chair was almost as dangerous as a gun.

  She found Pisces seated at a table near the door. She wasn’t eating. She was waiting. When she spotted Caledonia, she stood and moved to join her.

  Caledonia strode past, knowing her friend would follow. This was not the place for the conversation Caledonia intended to have.

  Neither girl said a word until they were safely inside Caledonia’s quarters, the door shut firmly behind them.

  “Cala—” Pisces began, but Caledonia cut her off.

  “What do you think you’re doing with him?”

  Pisces crossed her arms. “Helping him. Helping us.”

  “You had his head in your lap.” Anger trembled in Caledonia’s voice. “That’s not helping him.”

  “He’s sick. We needed him quiet. You said to keep him quiet.”

  “Yes! By using your fist, not singing him a lullaby!”

  “That’s not what I was doing, Cala.”

  Caledonia waited, fists punched against her hips, lips pinched shut.

  Pisces sighed with her whole body. “I got a tincture of nightcast from Doc Tricius. I’ve been giving him a few doses a day to ease his symptoms, help him sleep.”

  Nightcast was not difficult to come by, but they had none on the ship. While not as addictive as Silt, it put the recipient in a heavy sleep. It could knock out a person of any size, suffering all manner of pain. It wasn’t only dangerous, it was expensive. And Pisces had taken it upon herself to purchase some for the comfort of a Bullet.

  Caledonia’s lips fell into a steep frown. It was Pisces’s gentle heart she’d put at risk by allowing that boy to remain on board. No matter what he promised them, she should have trusted her first instinct. She should have thrown him over.

  But she hadn’t, and now they needed him.

  “Bullets are poison. That Bullet is a poison.”

  “His name is Oran,” Pisces said, biting at Caledonia’s attempt to keep him a faceless captive. “And he’s not poison, he’s a boy. I know you want to convince yourself that they’re all the same—drugged, violent, evil—but I’m not willing to believe it’s true. Oran saved my life. He’s human. With a mind and heart. Maybe he’s done terrible things, but I don’t believe he’s a terrible person.”

  “Of course he’s done terrible things! And will again. This is why I didn’t want him on board in the first place. We have rules for a reason—they keep us safe from exactly this kind of insidious deception. No. Bullets.”

  “Until we find our brot
hers.”

  “What?”

  “No Bullets, until we find our brothers.”

  The words knocked against Caledonia’s lungs. “They—they’re our brothers,” she stammered.

  “And they’re Bullets.” Pisces spoke firmly, her words brushed with pain. “Someone did this to them. Someone turned them into the thing we fight against. And if I could find the ones responsible, I’d let that little seed of anger they planted inside me four years ago turn me into something even more terrible than them. I’d make them pay.” Her fingers closed into trembling fists, and she exhaled slowly. “But that’s never going to happen. What is going to happen is we’re going to get our brothers back. And that rule is going to change, so we might as well start now. With Oran.”

  Oran. She hated knowing his name. She hated the way Pisces said his name. She hated that where she saw only danger, Pisces saw hope. Most of all, she hated that she was going to have to hurt her sister in order to keep her safe. “You are not to see him. Don’t visit him again. Don’t look at him again. Understand?”

  “I understand.” Pisces’s voice was cool as the ocean water. “I understand that you’re afraid. You’ve always been afraid. It’s your deep dark secret, and you judge the people around you based on what you’re afraid of. Well, this may be surprising, but we’re just as smart as you, Caledonia. We’re as brave as you, and you have to trust us to act like it.”

  The words were like a sharp wind that left Caledonia gasping. Pisces didn’t know that Caledonia was responsible for the death of their families and their brother’s capture, but she knew Caledonia.

  “I do trust you. I just don’t trust the world. That’s why we have rules. The rules keep us safe.” And if she’d believed her mother when she’d said the same thing, she’d have prevented the slaughter of all the families aboard the Ghost. Rhona had known better, and now she did, too.

  Frustration showed on Pisces’s face. “I don’t think you do trust us. Not the way we trust you. If you did, you’d know I’m not letting myself be deceived by Oran.”