Eternal Gambit

by St Clare, Kelly

  “And in these times, who could be a better choice for our daughter?”

  Ebba did her best to conceal her shy smile but lost. Bloody thing.

  Plank searched her face for a beat and then kissed her forehead once more. “Would ye like a moment more out here? I’ll tell the others they’ve upset ye big-time.”

  Ebba grinned, sweeping back a dread that whipped about as the howling wind came through the passage. “Aye, I’ll stay out here. But Plank? Are ye okay after touchin’ veritas?”

  He paused and peered back at her. “I know what I have to do.”

  He did? She beamed at him. “I’m glad for ye.”

  Dipping his head, Plank strode for the cave.

  “Plank?” she called again. When he turned, she said, “Thank ye. It means a lot that ye like him.”

  “Oh, I don’t like him, little nymph. I’ll never like any male ye fancy. Not one bit. But if he makes ye happy, I’ll learn to abide by him though there’ll be less room in yer heart for me with him leaning about.”

  Her jaw dropped. “He does lean, doesn’t he? I noticed that.”

  “I’d wager he wanted ye to. And if ye were askin’ for my approval to crack on, ye have it.”

  She’d take that. Only five more fathers to convince.

  But first things first.

  Waiting until Plank was completely out of sight, Ebba picked up her crimson skirt and hurried to the steep steps. Caspian and Jagger had the sword, so she wouldn’t have the help of veritas to find the source of the shining light. But that couldn’t be helped.

  Ebba didn’t have much time.

  Thirteen

  “Stupid dress,” Ebba panted. “Stupider corset.”

  She’d managed to descend the steep steps without breaking her neck, but running down the path toward the stream had proved a bad idea. Her insides were squished into a tiny space and objected to the jarring movements.

  Propping her palm against a boulder, Ebba held her side and sucked in large gulps of air. She strained to listen for company over her heaving pants. No one guarded their cave—there was hardly any reason to when there wasn’t anywhere to go. Though she recalled Pockmark or Cannon saying the passage was guarded. Hopefully the guard’s vantage point would allow her to remain unseen at the stream.

  When she felt less like passing out, Ebba straightened and glanced both ways down the path. She couldn’t hear anything from the direction of the ship and nothing but bubbling and popping from the stream.

  No one was in sight.

  She slid one booted foot in the direction of the stream. And then another before pausing to listen once more. The coast was clear. Ebba settled for a languid walk that, while it didn’t decrease her slight dizziness, didn’t make the feeling worse.

  “Pick it up, ye blitherin’ fools,” came a roaring voice behind her.

  Ebba stared at the damning crimson skirt and then turned in a circle, scanning the path for the biggest boulder. The largest—only the height of her shoulders—didn’t inspire much confidence, but she leaped in the direction of it, skirt hoisted in both hands as she fervently hoped not to break her ankle on the uneven ground. Heavy footsteps pounded toward her. Too close. Too many.

  Reaching the black boulder, she gathered in her skirt, tucking it as tightly to her body as possible, and crouched, hugging her knees. Peeking out to look at the troop of pirates passing by seemed like a bad idea, so Ebba squeezed her eyes shut and listened to their thumping steps, heart hammering in her rib cage.

  “I said faster, ye pox’d rodents. Cannon wants us to the entrance and back in an hour.”

  Ebba opened her eyes. The entrance? Again?

  Releasing a shaking breath as they passed her spot without slowing, she crept back to the path, checking both ways again.

  Did they go through the passage to the entrance every day? Was it just to collect food for her crew? Ebba paused. They’d appeared awfully urgent for a food run. . . .

  She waited a moment longer, listening hard for company behind her, and then set off to the stream for the second time.

  Ebba paused where the larger boulders tapered to hip level. Gathering her skirt tight, she crouched and waited as the tainted pirates ran up the steps to the passage platform and disappeared through the crevice to the entrance.

  They’d be back in an hour—she’d better get a move on.

  She kept low—better safe than dead—and hustled to the water’s edge. Tendrils of steam curled about her face. Ebba drew a hand over her forehead, wiping away the gathered perspiration. Sink her, it was hotter by the boiling water. She sucked in another breath. Blast Barrels for doing the laces so tight.

  Right, the glowing damned—or thing—had been at the northern end. Without the sword, identifying the right person might not be possible. Ebba walked left along the water’s edge, peering into the crowd of damned men, women, and children. Their anguished eyes bore into hers, and there was a leering edge in some of the eyes today also; whether it was because Cannon wasn’t here or because of her new garb was unclear. The uncomfortable tension further emphasized that Ebba didn’t want to join them, nor sentence her fathers to eternity there. Such a price was too cruel a fate for any person—though maybe not for people like Cannon and the pillars. If she saw the thunderbird again, who sorted good and bad souls in the oblivion, words would be exchanged. Or maybe she’d talk, and then he’d kill her in a monster storm.

  Ebba blew out a breath, clutching her side again. Her eyes were sharp after a life spent in and out of the crow’s nest. Even then, peering into the grimy black tested her limits. And she had no idea what had emitted the white glow. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. The glow had moved, so that narrowed things down. Either the glow was a person or an object on a person.

  “Ahoy,” she hissed, cupping her mouth with both hands. “Is there anythin’ white and glowin’ in there?”

  When in doubt, ask. Sometimes, it yielded surprising results.

  . . . Not in this instance. Ebba glanced at the hands stretching toward her and swallowed, hoping none of them decided to take a swim today.

  Sweat trickled down her neck, disappearing between the mounds of her pumped-up chest. Ebba fanned her face, pausing once more to suck in gulps of air. So hot, but she had to hurry.

  Walking again, Ebba fixed her eyes on the opposite bank, systematically working front to back. Black, sooty, dirty, caked. She sighed, placing both hands on her hips.

  And blinked.

  There was one thing she hadn’t considered. Her crew had gathered five parts of the weapon. But there was another to collect. The sixth part that they’d assumed was in Cannon’s possession.

  What if it wasn’t?

  What if she’d glimpsed it by accident from their cave?

  That made things considerably harder. Not only because Ebba would need to physically go get it, but also because the part might be helping the person survive on the other side. If she was in hell with that advantage, Ebba would fight to the death to keep the part.

  She continued to the northern end of the cavern, unwilling to give up just yet in case the glow had been a person. She placed both hands on her hips, panting through the muggy air.

  Nope, she had to stop a minute.

  Bending at the hips, Ebba rested a hand on the small boulder beneath her. Whistles crossed the waterway, and she raised her head then glanced down, realizing what the whistles were aimed at. Glaring the eight feet across the stream, Ebba bolted upright as a set of amber eyes stared back at her. Hard. Serrated. Before Caspian’s angry gaze of late, she’d only seen such eyes once before.

  She took a step closer, working her toes right to the edge of the purple stream. She couldn’t step across, but she might’ve forgotten herself to do just that otherwise.

  The person on the other side did the same, sinking to a crouch on the opposite bank. She’d never have thought such a man could crouch. The last time Ebba saw him, he’d been forcefully sat in a chair with a multitude of pistols aim
ed at his gut. One of which had claimed his life.

  “Montcroix,” she whispered.

  He dipped his head.

  Caspian’s father was in Davy Jones’ Locker. Was he the source of the glow? If not, that was a mighty big coincidence. . . .

  The dead king tilted his head left and disappeared back into the midst of the damned. Ebba stared at the spot where he’d been, mouth bone-dry. Caspian’s dad was here. That she’d met once. Up until the very last time he saw her, he’d thought her engaged to his son. In their last interaction, he’d seen she was a pirate, tossed her the veritas, and told her to look after Caspian.

  “Lusty riots o’ an underpaid brothel wench,” she breathed.

  He was Caspian’s father. And he was in hell. Ebba couldn’t even think of how that might mess up her friend.

  Shaking herself, Ebba took the king’s directive and traversed the rest of the way to the northern cliff face, glancing around the surrounding cavern and back to the passage platform to check for company. She kept a sharp eye on the shore for his reappearance. Once there, she rested a hand on the cliff face and rechecked her surroundings. The ship would be directly behind her, but boulders completely concealed it from view. But if the group of tainted pirates returned from the entrance, her skirt was a crimson flag, and she had no cover between the stream and the fifty feet to the first boulders that could conceal her.

  The purple waterway at this end was narrower—only six feet—and didn’t bubble and pop as much. There were far less damned here too. Ebba hadn’t realized the noise they created with their moans and pleas before.

  She glanced up and found the king waiting for her. He was really here. Ebba just didn’t expect to see people she knew in hell. It was unsettling.

  “Lady.” The king dipped his head.

  He didn’t remember her fake name. Typical royal landlubber. “My name be Ebba. And ye’re—”

  “Shh,” he hissed, darting a look either side. “Do not utter that name here.”

  The prone people surrounding him didn’t seem in the listening kind of mood, but. . . . “Aye, can’t say I’m blamin’ ye for that. Not the place I’d want to end up in yer pos’tion.”

  Call her gloating, but to see the enemy of all piratekind get what he deserved was a moment for celebration. Even if he was also the enemy of her enemies. The only redeeming quality he’d displayed in her brief time cooped up in a safety room with him was his love for his children—an iceberg kind of love where only a tiny amount showed on the surface, and the rest was buried so deep and in such a cold place that she had to wonder if it was truly there. Caspian had doubted his father’s love, after all. Still did.

  “Why is my son here?” Montcroix whispered across the gap, crouching again. Ebba did the same, wincing as her corset dug in.

  “Ye saw us come in then?” she asked.

  He would’ve had a perfect view of the nine of them coming down the passage steps not long ago. Ebba glanced right to the southern end of the cavern and then twisted to see the west cliff faces. Cods, he could even see their cave ledge from here. King Forge Montcroix must’ve been driven wild by seeing Caspian up there.

  Ebba chewed her lip and came to a decision. “Listen up. I’m only sayin’ this once. We’re on a quest to collect six parts o’ a weapon that will take down the six pillars. They be an evil force with great power who have taken over the Exosian realm. Last we saw ‘em, they’d stormed the castle, packed off all yer people to work in the mines. By now, mostly everyone in the realm will be tainted, from what an ex-soothsayer told us. But the pillars are after the weapon, too; it’ll make them unstop’able. Mutinous Cannon—”

  The king snarled, and she ignored him. He’d killed Cannon two decades ago, but it must gripe Montcroix that he had ended up in the same place and under Cannon’s thumb.

  “—be workin’ for them. He’s holdin’ us prisoner here. And aside from knowin’ the pillars want the parts, we can’t figure out what Cannon’s plan is or how we can escape with the parts.”

  Caspian’s father didn’t speak for a time, and Ebba took the chance to survey him in greater detail.

  He was essentially in the same physical state as when he’d died, minus the bullet wound, unless the injury was covered by clothes. His garb, like all the others’, was grimy with black dirt. The king had learned to crouch, but he’d also shirked his regal drawn-back posture. Caspian’s father was a survivor, it appeared. He slumped; he crawled; he had altered to fit in. The only thing separating the royal from the other damned was that he’d taken pains to keep his face clean.

  “I see,” the king said quietly. “And where was my son in all this?”

  Ebba narrowed her eyes. “Running for our lives like the rest o’ us. And not a moment goes by when he doesn’t regret it.”

  She couldn’t glean a thing from Forge’s expression. And as much as she wanted to give him news of Caspian, there were more pressing matters.

  “I have questions,” she said, snapping the dead king out of his funk.

  He nodded. “Proceed.”

  Maybe he hadn’t completely lost his snobbery. “How many times a day does the wind howl?”

  “Four. Every six hours.”

  Ebba filed that away in case Barrels hadn’t kept track. “When the damned die, how long does it take ‘em to come back?”

  A shadow of horror passed through the king’s eyes. Ebba wondered if he’d jumped in.

  “They’ll come back with the next surge of wind. Anywhere from one minute to six hours,” he answered. “And they arrive back at the start of the passage.”

  Ebba pressed her lips together. That wasn’t ideal. If the path emerged with the howling wind, and they killed Cannon, then he’d regenerate right where they’d be escaping. “Okay.”

  Forge frowned. “Only the damned belong here,” he called in a low voice. “Why can Caspian not leave?”

  “Me, Caspian, one o’ my fathers, and maybe Jagger can leave, but my other fathers have some taint in them. All o’ us need to get out o’ here, so we need to figure out a di’ferent way to escape.” She wouldn’t mention their friend on the outside. Not when any of the seemingly dead people could really be listening in.

  The king’s shoulders sagged. “And how is my son?”

  Ebba had a list of questions the size of Montcroix’s misdeeds, and all he wanted to talk about was his son, which she could kind of understand. “Caspian be stru’gling to come to terms with who he is because ye screwed him up by not showin’ enough a’fection,” she snapped.

  Montcroix startled at her words.

  “Do ye know what Cannon’s plan might be?” she asked him, shoving past the small guilt she felt over her comment. He’d have eternity to dwell on that, after all.

  The king shook his head. “The deal is that if we remain over here, Cannon will free us from this place. That is what he tells the damned. They believe his words.”

  Ebba glanced at the stream. “So ye can get over to the pirate side o’ the stream?”

  “We can, but then the deal is off. Everyone who isn’t a pirate climbs down the cliffs from the passage platform.”

  “No one at all has gone over?” she said. That would be the first thing she’d do if their positions were reversed.

  He tilted his head. “An eternity spent being killed by your inmates because you reneged on a deal is not desirable even though I will never believe the word of a pirate.”

  That made things awkward, but she felt the same way about him. ”Well, don’t be comin’ over here. All o’ the pirates on this side be tainted, and I ain’t sure bein’ dead will stop ye catchin’ it.”

  She stilled. Not only was Cannon keeping her crew away from the taint, he’d kept the damned away from the taint too. That had to mean something. Why else would he take such pains?

  “The black eyes and the pockmarks on their bodies. That is the taint?”

  “Aye, that be the pillars’ evil,” she answered, casting a glance at the passage platf
orm. How long had passed? She couldn’t risk too much longer. The pirates would be back from the entrance soon.

  “If the taint is infectious, how is it that you are well?” he said, peering into her eyes.

  Was he checking their appearance? “Cannon put us up in that cave ye can see. It ain’t tainted. The stone this cavern be made o’ ain’t affected by the evil.”

  “A kind of talisman?”

  Ebba hadn’t thought of the stone like that before. “Dunno.” She glanced up at the platform again.

  “Does not it seem odd that you are untainted but on the tainted side?” the king murmured. “Not only does that suggest that Mutinous Cannon wants you all unharmed, but clearly he needs you untainted. Why is that?”

  “Been wond’ring the same thing myself,” Ebba remarked, her skin crawling. “Listen, I’ve got to skedaddle afore the group from the entrance comes back.”

  The king shifted. “They go each day at the same time.”

  That confirmed one thing.

  “You have given me many things to think on,” he continued as she started to rise. “You must come back tomorrow so we can confer again.”

  Ebba snorted. “There ain’t no conferrin’, matey. Ye’re on yer own.”

  “Despite what I did and didn’t do in my life, I still ruled a kingdom for forty years. I am versed in how the minds of the likes of Cannon work. Better still, I killed him once before.”

  Through sheer gunpower, no doubt. She hesitated.

  “My son is over there,” he pressed. “You want to get out; I want to save my son from a horrible fate. Our interests are aligned.”

  “Ye would’ve done better to save yer son when ye were alive,” she told him.

  The king swallowed. “No one knows that more than I.”

  “I’ll think about it. But if I do come back, ye better make it worth my while or I won’t be back a third time.”

  Ebba stood, her gut twisting.

  Was the glowing light veritas showed her the king? Had the sword recognized its last owner? Because Ebba was certain Forge shouldn’t be glowing with truth and goodness otherwise. Or was the sixth part with the damned, and she’d just happened upon the dead king?