Eternal Gambit

by St Clare, Kelly

“We don’t either,” Caspian assured him. “We’ve only been able to come up with one theory in three days.”

  “Three days, ye say?” Stubby arched, moaning. “That explains a fair lot about the state o’ my back. Go on then, what be yer theory?”

  Locks muttered, “Wait until ye hear it.”

  Ebba glanced around the crew. “Spit it out then.” Her eyes roamed of their own free will to where Jagger stood in the shadows of the cave. What was the matter with him? Why wasn’t he coming out to see her?

  “They be thinkin’ that ye took the rap for Stubby,” Jagger answered from the darkness.

  She took the rap? Screwing up her face, Ebba turned to Caspian.

  “You didn’t see it,” he told her. “All of us were thrown back, but it’s like you were lifted and flung. Stubby just crumpled in a heap, as though he slept. You were unresponsive for three days. And,” he said with a pointed look to the others, “is it mere coincidence that you woke minutes before Stubby also regained consciousness?”

  Ebba stared at him. If truth be told, she’d known for a long time that the connection between her and her fathers went a step beyond the norm. When the crew was apart, she didn’t just feel sadness but borderline panic. When one of them was hurt, she could barely think straight. “What does it mean?”

  He blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. It’s like the two of you are connected somehow. Linked. But that makes no sense.”

  Stubby was shaking his head. “Are ye sayin’ the tube took sumpin’ from Ebba instead? She wasn’t the closest to me. And the purgium ain’t never done that afore.”

  “But is that true?” Barrels interjected. “When Grubby touched the purgium, Ebba was out for several days also. He just slept, like Stubby.”

  Her brows rose. That was true. But. . . . “I hit my head then too.” Ebba paused. “Though that injury wasn’t really bad enough to be out three days.”

  She turned to Barrels. “Do ye think there be sumpin’ in that? Like I’m truly linked to the six o’ ye somehow?”

  Jagger stepped out onto the ledge. She took one look at his white-lipped expression, and her heart sank. If Ebba had to guess, she’d say the pirate was mightily peeved over recent events. And she had an inkling all that anger was directed her way.

  All Ebba wanted was for him to close the gap and wrap her in his strong arms, but as the seconds went by, it became clear she wouldn’t receive a single look.

  “Ye forget,” Jagger said, “that she ain’t just mortal. She’s one o’ the three watchers. We don’t know what she’s capable o’. Or what her role entails.”

  There were too many unanswered questions in that for Ebba’s liking. “Does it really matter? Stubby’s alive and healed—”

  “O’ course it matters,” Jagger snapped at her. “What if Mutinous heals the rest o’ yer fathers and the same thing happens four times over?”

  Ebba blinked. “Why are ye in a shite?”

  She hadn’t done anything wrong, had she? Hard to with being unconscious and all, but Ebba was mostly sure she was in the clear.

  Barrels leaned forward and took her hand, drawing her attention. “We’ve been worried about you. We didn’t know if you’d wake up.”

  Understanding dawned. “Ah, I see.” Ebba knelt and hugged her eldest father. “I’m okay.”

  She went around to each of her fathers in turn and stopped before Caspian, eyes asking him a silent question.

  He opened his arm and she leaned in, hugging him with her right arm as per their usual custom. The hug was slightly awkward, but the physical touch felt good. As though they’d navigated another swell in regaining their friendship.

  Then Ebba turned to Jagger, who’d returned to his shadows. “Stop sulkin’,” she called ahead.

  That drew him out quicker than salt on a leech.

  “I ain’t sulkin’,” he said, glaring.

  Ebba pushed his arms open and fell against his chest, pressing her cheek to the area over his heart. “I’m okay, Jagger, ye nincompoop. Why’re ye puffin’ up for?”

  He stiffened. “I ain’t puffin’ up.”

  “What do ye call this then?”

  His arms encircled her tightly. “I call it ye never listen to me.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she pulled back. “Ye tried to stop me gettin’ to Stubby.”

  “Ye wouldn’t’ve stopped me?” he asked.

  She huffed and resumed her position on his chest. “Don’t turn the tables. This is about ye.”

  Jagger stroked a hand over her beads, resting his head atop hers. “Aye, Viva. It’s all about me.” He brought his lips to her ear. “I thought ye’d died.”

  A shiver assaulted her. Now that he’d put the notion in her head, it wasn’t hard to imagine that situation reversed. Ebba breathed through the horror induced by the mere thought of Jagger being asleep for three days after something like that.

  “Well,” she said softly, “I be right sorry ye were worried.”

  “Okay, enough o’ that,” Stubby said. “My head be too sore for that sight.”

  Ebba rolled her eyes and untangled herself from Jagger. Her fathers should be glad she hadn’t given in to her feelings completely and kissed him for all she was worth.

  Stubby glared at them. “What else have I missed then?”

  “The tainted pirates have been searching for my father,” Caspian said, turning to look out over the Locker. “They haven’t found him, but none of us have left this ledge since Stubby was healed.”

  Peg-leg clapped him around the shoulders, nearly sending Caspian over the edge. “Don’t worry, lad. If the tainted pirates didn’t have orders to the otherwise, they’d already have crossed the stream to collect yer father. If he be smart, he’ll stay in the thick o’ the damned there. Whatever else yer father was, no one disputed his cunnin’.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if it was his only redeemable quality,” Caspian said, face falling.

  Ebba interjected. “That and lovin’ his children. But that aside, I think ye’re ten times the man he is, as ye well know.”

  Jagger stirred at her side and she glanced across at him. Blank face. Her favorite expression on him.

  She sighed, and his lips twitched.

  “Am I a lot to handle, Viva?” he whispered, running his hands over the beads in one of her dreads.

  A lot to handle? A scalding pot full of boiling water was a lot to handle. He was like one of the thunderbird’s storms. Ebba sniffed and focused on ignoring the handsome pirate who had now picked up one of her hands and was stroking each of her black nails in turn.

  That felt . . . incredible. Relaxing.

  Grubby raised his hand. “A crack appeared in the black rock when Stubby was healed. Right through the middle.”

  Shite. That wasn’t good. “It doesn’t open all the way to the Dynami Sea?”

  Peg-leg answered, “Nay, just a rivulet from top to bottom. For now.”

  “Riot be dead-dead,” Locks piped up.

  “Wait, what?” Ebba blurted, leaving Jagger to go to her father.

  “He was the one holdin’ the box with the purgium in it. When Stubby touched the tube, white light exploded, and the rest o’ us were thrown back. But after all the chaos, we looked back and only a pile of ash remained where Riot had been.” Locks shrugged.

  “He hasn’t come back?” Stubby asked.

  “Not that we’ve seen,” Plank said. “But Cannon hasn’t made contact with us since. Just been sendin’ Pockmark with food and to ask about Ebba.”

  Ebba whistled low. “So the taint doesn’t go well around the white light?” If so, that was good to know. She had a promise to keep to Cannon, if her fathers didn’t make her get in line behind them.

  “Hold on a minute,” she exclaimed, an idea coming to her. “Don’t ye think that Riot could’ve been the one to pay the sacrifice?”

  “We did contemplate that,” Caspian said, righting his crown. “But how do you explain what happened to you?”

  She lif
ted a shoulder. “Magic weirdness?”

  Caspian hummed in reply.

  Even she knew that fobbing off recent events as magic weirdness was no longer an option. They had to figure this out before more tainted pirates got out of here. “It’s been three days since Stubby was healed,” she said suddenly.

  Plank grimaced. “Aye, little nymph. It has.”

  “Well,” Ebba pressed, “how many are gettin’ out?” If Stubby was free of taint now, that meant the scales had slid in Cannon’s favor—even with the possible ‘real’ death of Riot lessening the tally of evil within the Locker.

  “They haven’t been fillin’ us in,” Plank said then hesitated. “But this mornin’ we counted one hundred goin’ to the entrance. And only seventy yesterday. Plus, each day, more and more tainted have been arrivin’ in the Locker.” He tilted his head over the ledge.

  Still reeling that the number of tainted able to leave the Locker had leaped up so quickly, Ebba neared the edge of their perch. She gaped at the sight below. When they’d first arrived in the Locker, the far side of the stream was covered with damned while the tainted pirates on this side remained mostly confined to the ship. No longer. Now, tainted pirates spread out through the boulders nearly all the way to the stream, partway where their cave path branched off from the main walkway.

  Both sides were as packed as each other. There had to be nearly one thousand tainted pirates below.

  “So many more,” she said, her voice a hollow echo. How could they ever beat or escape that many?

  “We be thinkin’ the pillars are killin’ the tainted on purpose unless there be some type of battle afoot,” Peg-leg said.

  “If one hundred pirates can get out, then so can we.” She bit her lip. But how was that possible when Cannon had the root parts? And with the tainted pirates sprawling through the boulders, her crew’s jaunts down to the water had just become significantly harder.

  The situation felt out of control. Utterly. And the urge to open the vote to abort their quest hovered on the tip of her tongue. Yet Ebba swallowed it back. A pirate might take a while to dedicate themselves to a venture of this like, but once a pirate gave her word, a pirate saw the job through. She’d known when they decided to pursue all this that they were likely signing over their lives. Ebba was okay with giving her life to save her loved ones.

  She just wasn’t okay with her loved ones giving their lives to save hers.

  Crossing to the top of the stairs, Jagger jogged down, disappearing from sight. He reappeared soon after and then crouched by Plank. “No one be listenin’ on the steps. I’m goin’ in tonight,” he said in undertones. “I’ll try to find the parts and get as many out as I can without detection.”

  “Nay,” Ebba said immediately.

  “What? Ye’re allowed to risk yer life, but not me?” he answered her, eyes calm.

  She stared at him. Had he just read her mind? “Ye’ve risked yer life plenty-like, haven’t ye?”

  “Aye, we’re in agreement there. And if someone else was immune to magic, I’d be for sendin’ them in instead, never doubt that.”

  She didn’t. He was a pirate, not an idiot. “But what if ye’re tainted badly? Like ye were at the start.” That Jagger had been out for himself and, on occasion, had done mean things for the apparent fun of it. Letting her beads roll out of the scupper being one of them.

  “I won’t lose control,” he said, pressing his lips together.

  “That be well and good, unless ye can’t,” Locks replied.

  Jagger fixed him with a look. “Do ye have a better idea, matey?”

  “No man that hugs my daughter, who ain’t one of my co-parents, is a matey of mine,” her father scoffed. “But nay, I reckon that be our best shot. Though I be concerned it won’t be enough.”

  Ebba paced in the only clear section of the ledge. “O’ course it be a terrible idea! Ye expect him to sneak in and out six times? Are ye all mad? Cannon overheard our plan three days ago. Ye think he’ll have forgotten that?”

  “Shh,” Caspian said, glancing over the side. “Lower yer voice.”

  “Don’t tell me to lower my voice when the plan be stupid.”

  Caspian’s jaw clenched. “There won’t be any plan unless you keep your temper.”

  Since when did Caspian speak to her like that? Ebba scratched her chin, scrutinizing him, and then blew out a breath. “I vote nay. We’ll find another way.”

  “One more load o’ tainted come in, and Davy Jones’ could burst open,” Stubby said with a look her way. “And if that don’t work, considerin’ the crack in the wall, Cannon’ll be back here to heal more o’ us. I don’t know if Ebba just took the hit for me or if that ain’t the case or what. But if she did take injury so I could heal, I be worried she’ll take it for the rest o’ ye, too.”

  “Aye,” chorused her other fathers.

  Ebba stood, her fists furled. “So ye’ll sacrifice Jagger just to save me.”

  “Do ye need us to answer that one, lass?” Peg-leg asked.

  Barrels stood, looking at her. “We’ve got to put our personal feelings aside. This is bigger than us.”

  And the fact Barrels disliked Jagger had nothing to do with his opinion whatsoever.

  Ebba snorted derisively, placing her hands on her hips. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree. Saving the realm was bigger than them, and they’d all signed up for it. But there were some people, namely everyone on this ledge, who she couldn’t bear to lose. Three days ago, she nearly did, and the incident had brought an icy realization to what they were doing. At many points, her crew’s lives had been placed in harm’s way. But never, never had she experienced the blinding, furious panic of three days ago. Where that came from, Ebba didn’t know. Her instinct told her that her crew dying was a bad, bad idea, and not just for the normal sadness. Ebba had come so far. Not all of that way with her fathers’ help. Or the help of Caspian or Jagger. Should she ignore her instincts now just because this was ‘the only plan’?

  No.

  “I vote nay,” she repeated.

  One by one, the others mumbled their votes.

  Turned out hers was the only no.

  “It be settled,” Jagger said.

  She ignored his attempts to catch her eye. If he wanted to go and kill himself, he could do it knowing she was raving mad at him. And then when he died and ended up here, she’d let him know all about it for eternity.

  Caspian nodded, leaving the edge. “You’ll go in tonight.” He glanced around the rest of them, his eyes flickering as they met hers. “But you won’t be the only person doing something. If this is going to work, we’ll all need to help.”

  Twenty-Two

  “Are ye still angry at me?” Jagger whispered as they crept down the path to the crossroad.

  Ebba pressed her lips together. “Are ye still goin’ to creep onto the ship?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then aye,” she mocked. Her eyes narrowed at the rumbling sound in his chest. He’d better not be laughing.

  Amusement laced his deep voice. “I’ll have to come back and make it up to ye, will I?”

  Ebba glanced back at Grubby, Plank, Caspian, and Stubby to make sure they weren’t in earshot. Like she and Jagger, they were quietly creeping from boulder to boulder down the cave path. Well, mostly quiet.

  “Ye can try,” she answered him. “If ye’re in luck, I mightn’t have moved on to the next lad afore ye return.”

  This time he chuckled low. “I’ll have to come back with riches.”

  Ebba doubted there was any gold or priceless gems in hell. But his comment reminded her of Plank and his wife and how her father must have once joked about the same thing. “Nay, Jagger. Just come back to me. Come back to me as ye are, and I’ll forgive ye on the spot.”

  She didn’t much feel like joking any longer.

  “And what if I be changed, Viva? What then?”

  A tightness saturated his words as though he was slightly nervous. So Ebba thought some about he
r reply. “I’ll chain ye down until ye’re normal again. Then I’ll kiss ye. After I punch ye in the gut.”

  A moment of quiet passed. “Sounds reas’nable.”

  It was. Ebba wasn’t happy about the plan whatsoever. Happier because the rest of them were helping, but still angry that Jagger would be right in the belly of the tainted ship, surrounded by the evil damned. Still, a vote was a vote, and she was willing to admit to herself that her feelings were clouding her judgment. In her defense, she’d be exactly the same if one of her fathers or Caspian were going inside.

  There hadn’t been enough discussion of the consequences for her liking. Odds were, unless they got extremely lucky, that Jagger would be discovered before extracting all of the parts. What then? Things wouldn’t just go back to normal. Cannon and even Pockmark had minds of their own. They wouldn’t let this go without repercussions.

  Ebba slowed as they reached the crossroads.

  There would be tainted close by, so none of them spoke. The rest of her crew sidled up beside them, and they all watched as Jagger leaned down and patted the ground. Straightening, Ebba’s brows shot up as he rubbed his hands over his eyes.

  What was he doing?

  She leaned in and saw his eyes were watering furiously. Had he just rubbed dirt in his eyes? They were kind of bloodshot now. Not yellow, like Cannon’s, but somewhere in between. Ebba shook her head.

  He removed his tunic and gave the garment the same treatment, rubbing it over the black stone and encrusted dirt before shrugging the garment back on.

  Did he honestly believe a bit of dirt would save his gullet? Or was she not giving him enough credit, considering he’d survived two years serving under Pockmark?

  He tucked in one side of his tunic, and then rubbed his dirty hands down his already stained slops. Then Jagger straightened and looked straight at her.

  Be careful, she mouthed, her chest tightening.

  Jagger winked and then, with a nod at the others, hunched over and shuffled left down the path. She watched him go, frowning. How had he done that? From the back, Ebba would have a hard time distinguishing him from the other tainted pirates.

  Too soon, he disappeared from view.