by Silas Post
A violent wind kicked up as the cyclones swirled larger. They sucked sand up from the deep reserve on the beach and spat it into the sky, raining dry granules all over us that fell heavy and hard, a hail of tiny stones that crashed noisily onto our deck.
“Our boat is already heavy, my liege,” said one of the guards holding me down. “We can’t take this extra weight.”
“It’s only sand,” Wick said. “We’ll sail out of her range soon enough, the riptide will pull us out— What was that?”
A crash of metal clanged near the ship’s edge and the boat jolted forward. Wick ran to the boat’s side railing but I stayed put. I already knew what he’d see.
“The anchor,” one man said, leaning over the rail. “It’s down.”
“Idiots!” he yelled. “Who dropped anchor? Raise it up, we must leave!”
“I think you’ll find it’s broken,” I said. He grabbed me by my vest, but the guards that held my arms down loosened their grips. Their faces drained of color, and Wick followed their terrified eyes to the same place I watched now, a half-pace behind him. Araine’s sandy triplets arose from the inch-thick sand that piled onto the ship’s deck.
“Araine welcomed your ships to her shore,” they said in tripartite harmony. “She deserves spoils if this furthers your war.”
“You want souls to torture,” Wick said, “be my guest. Take a few captives. Take ten! Just feck off.”
“Our mistress wants your soul now, as penance,” the sirens said. “A broken promise must be mended by the glue of regret.”
“For the last time,” Wick said, releasing me and drawing his sword from its hilt. “I’m not the one who promised anything.”
He struck down that siren with his sword, but she materialized behind him after that, springing from the sand that blanketed the deck underfoot. The other two sirens clawed at the men that guarded me, forcing them to relinquish their hold as they defended themselves.
I fought my way toward the boat’s stern, shuffling my bound legs and squinting against the blizzard of snow that pelted the boat from every direction.
“Victor!”
I peered at the beach. Araine stood at the center of the shore, commanding her assault on any man or vessel with royal affiliation. Off to her side was another woman, one whose cyan skirt and long blonde hair whipped against the constant wind.
“Jarah!” I yelled. “Turn back. You shouldn’t be here!”
The boat creaked beneath my feet. The anchor had halted our windward drift.
“Where should I be, Victor?” she asked. “You were apprehended, along with every neighbor I’ve ever known. My family, my friends, my entire race.”
“I know,” I said. “I will fix this. Somehow. Just stay off the sand. Stay where it’s safe!”
“That’s all you ever say these days,” she yelled louder now, to cut through the sound of swirling sand and wind. “ ‘No, Jarah.’ ‘It’s too dangerous, Jarah.’ ‘I’ll handle that instead, Jarah.’ ”
“It’s not true,” I said, searching my mind for proof she was wrong. “I let you steer the ship out of Telapa’s harbor. That counts for something.”
“Some trust that was,” she said. “You had no other choice! And I barely wanted that job, I was ill-suited for it.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” I said. “I want to protect you.”
“You cannot protect against my drive to make things right,” she said. “You cannot deprive me of the chance to make my own impact on this world. That’s not protection. It’s imprisonment. How little do you think of me, Victor, and since when? You used to think I was strong.”
“I still do,” I said, “but I can’t risk losing you. I can’t worry that your peril is my own fault. You didn’t watch two women you love nearly fall prey to separate blades, but I did. It haunts me.”
“I have watched you and Rikki face down dangers at every turn,” she said. “Dangers that terrify me, but I believe in your strength. I have a hope greater than any fear.”
“Where is Rikki?” I asked.
“In Merla’s house, guarding Redelia’s soul,” Jarah said.
“Alone?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jarah replied. “And speak no word of worry for her, Victor. She is as strong as I am in her own ways. We must be equals in this fight if we will ever succeed. Look what stifling me has achieved for you so far.”
The cuffs around my ankles and wrists still burned with infernal power. The ship was bathed in heavy sands, Redelia’s pendant was lost, and somewhere amidst the bound and suffering people in the belly of this cargo boat was a woman whose son was devoured by the infernal Araine. This was too much for one man to address, unless that man had powerful women devoted to the same goals.
“You are right,” I said. “And I am sorry. Many of your people are trapped within this boat, bound and unable to swim. Break the hull and set them free before we sink under our own weight.”
She smiled and straightened her back. “It would be my pleasure.”
“And Jarah,” I added. “There’s a boy, Wolly. Perhaps Merla can find it in her heart to give him a home.”
The storm had reached a deafening pitch, and there was no shouting across it now. Jarah nodded and turned to begin the daunting task of rescuing hundreds of people trapped in so many ways.
“Sire,” a guard yelled from across the ship, pausing his progress on the ship’s sail and waving an arm to draw his prince’s attention. “Sire, the sand won’t relent. We’re starting to sink!”
“Feck, feck, feck,” Wick yelled.
“I will not let her defeat us,” Wick yelled. “Abandon ship, and kill that witch on the beach!”
Men rushed to the boat’s edge and threw rope ladders over it, climbing in a hurry toward the coastal waters as the boat drifted further out to sea. They splash-landed in salty water and swam until they could trudge toward the shore where Araine awaited them with a smile.
Jarah, meanwhile, had uprooted a hefty palm and turned its root-end toward the boat. She ran as fast as her powerful thighs could carry her, through the deep fine sand and past the infernal without drawing her attention. Araine was too focused on Wick and her hunger for vengeance at some deal gone sour.
For his part, Wick stayed on the deck of his ship. He squinted his only working eye and approached the railing at the boat’s edge to survey the mayhem that was about to devolve on the beach.
Jarah launched the palm tree she carried, hurling the dense trunk at the hull of the ship. The entire boat shook from the impact, the air cracking with the sound of wooden slats splintering apart. A chorus of cheers erupted from the prisoners and they began pouring out of the boat, flinging themselves from the sinking vessel and into the seawater ahead.
The ship buoyed as it lost its living cargo, lightening its load faster than Araine’s sands could weigh us down. Jarah helped her people to their feet and directed them to the bushes that lined the beach, which meant running straight through the center of Araine’s sandstorm and past the infernal herself.
In any other circumstance, that would be suicide. Today, however, a legion of royal guards charged toward the sorceress of shifting sands, their blades drawn. They were the only souls she set her efforts against now. She sent her cyclones after them one at a time, opening whirlpools of quicksand beneath those men and sucking them into the bowels of the beach.
Each man sank completely, the beach closing over their helmets and silencing their screams well before they could bring their blades near Araine. She laughed as she destroyed Wick’s army without sustaining a single blow.
I cheered, elated at the sight of Wick’s defeat and Jarah’s success. The shackles at my feet began to crack, their surfaces dull from the lack of my pain and despair. Even trapped as I was, the sweet relief of watching good people escape a bad fate was a pleasure that worked against the infernal magic that summoned these cuffs.
A clang of metal and a tremendous splash interrupted my jovial sentiments. A ting
e of despair crept back into my heart as the ship resumed its drift toward the ocean at large. Wolly had done well to dismantle some aspect of the anchor, but perhaps he had done too well. It broke apart from its fastenings and plummeted wholesale into the ocean.
There was nothing to hold us here now.
Behind me, two of Wick’s guards lay bleeding on the deck, perhaps dead. Wick destroyed a sand siren, and none rose from the ship’s growing dunes to take her place. The sand, visible ahead of us in a violent tempest, ceased to fall upon our heads.
The ocean was carrying us away, even as the boat took water into its broken hull with every gentle wave.
“Come back!” Wick yelled at his fleet as they carried their cyclopean cargo toward his father’s continent. Their ships had escaped Araine’s wrath, and hundreds of Jarah’s people were bound for a terrible fate.
“Rescue your prince!” He yelled, his voice small against the ocean’s swell and the distance between us and the nearest boat. “And you…” He turned back toward me, but my focus lay with Jarah now. I climbed onto the ship’s rail and watched her rescue success from utter pandemonium.
Despite the danger, and the physical ardor of her task, Jarah helped her people out of the water and pointed them toward the bushes, a wall of vegetation that sat tranquil and oblivious to the storm that battered the beach. Araine’s power had its limits, after all. Once they climbed that far, they would be free from Wick and his men, if not from the shackles that cuffed them.
“Do you hear me?” Wick yelled. His voice was distant. Meaningless. We were two men alone on a sinking ship.
Jarah Lin would soon be a hero to her people, the woman that shattered the ship and led them to safety. What a fool I had been to ask her to sit quietly on the side.
Somewhere else on that mountain was Rikki Silena, clutching Redelia’s soul against her bosom. I would trust no one with that task more than I trusted Rikki. She was protective by nature, and she cherished our goddess with every ounce of her abundant heart.
They would succeed where I must be content to fail. What would I have said to each of them had I only known the ending was so near?
“Any last words?” Wick asked. He dragged his greatsword behind him, his lips curled back in a desperate sneer.
“For you, Wick? Yes.” I looked down at him as I balanced on the rail at the ship’s edge. “May you drown without a farthing on your tongue.”
Then, I jumped.
20
For the second time in two days, my body plunged into the cold waters that surrounded Okkor’s Isle. I kicked and I squirmed as I plummeted with unnatural speed, hopeful that my cracked manacles might tear apart with a firm thrust. They held firm, and my muscles relaxed with resignation.
Those heavy shackles, dense with desperate magic, plunged my body toward the ocean’s floor, though the silencing embrace of the water on all sides had a calming effect. I couldn’t swim like this, couldn’t dodge a watery doom. I could only sink.
I closed my eyes and allowed the strain of held breath to accompany me. To remind me that, for the moment, I was still alive. My diaphragm panged with the need to inhale. Not yet. I commanded my body to tighten, to hold its last gulp of air hostage.
I’ll need it, I thought. Eventually I’ll touch the bottom. Eventually I can walk.
That moment never came. Long before my feet could grace the ocean’s floor, something grabbed hold of me. Powerful arms wrapped around me like a vice, curling around my legs, my waist, my shoulders. They cinched around my front and back again, forcing a surprised yelp from my lips that escaped in a bright bubble.
The vision before me was blurred in the salty water, but her hue was unmistakable. Pink as a carnation with lips the color of midnight sky. I was caught in the silky grip of a krakeness.
“Sadine!” I tried to say, but her name was a garbled whimper on my lips. Her face was inches from mine, her short hair floating like a dark blue cloud around her head. Every inch of my body from my neck to my ankles was wrapped up in her embrace. Delicate suction cups on the undersides of her tentacles grazed against my palms and my bare arms.
She giggled. “I’m happy to see you too. I’ve been searching these waters for any sign of your destination.”
I tried again. “Can’t breathe.” Again, it was useless noise, bubbling away what little air I had left.
Sadine’s gills rippled just below her ears, filling her blood with life while mine burned inside my veins. “Tell me,” she said. “What are you saying?”
“Help… me.” My body was flat now. Deflated. Her grin widened.
“I’d never understand you,” she said. “You’re human. You can’t modify your voice for the water like me. Are you out of air yet? Was that the last of it?”
I nodded. My vision started to blacken at the edges, the color fading from this watery world.
“Good,” she said. She pressed her lips against mine. My mouth parted, resigned to accept one final kiss before the cloud carriers came down and scoffed at my penniless death. If only Sadine might place my last farthing where her tongue is now, just inside my lips. Maybe then I could move onto another life.
Her kiss was short-lived. She withdrew her tongue and exhaled deeply, filling my body with the air she drew in from the ocean around us. A euphoric coolness filled my lungs, though they weren’t mine to control anymore. When Sadine was through she pulled her face back and stared deeply into my eyes.
I exhaled. A deep sense of relief radiated through my body as I released that spent air into the water. Out with the bad, and in with the—
Sadine’s lips were back on mine, breathing my lungs for a full breath on my behalf. Then she let go. She swam a few feet away while I sank. I kicked my feet but I couldn’t slow my descent. I didn’t try all that hard. Instead, I marveled at the woman swimming freely before me.
I had nurtured this kraken back to health once. I had touched every inch of her tender body, revived her with the cool salve of fresh water. She had two tentacles then, long and slick. Definitely only two.
Now, she had four. The two that sprang from her shoulders curled against the water and kept her aloft while her human-shaped feet fluttered beneath her. Two new tentacles, just like the first pair, extended from her back.
She had molted, and now I knew the glory that resulted.
“Oh,” she said, scrunching her face in a look of perplexity as I failed to move my limbs to swim to her side. “You’re all wrapped up.”
She neared again, pulling me toward her with two tentacle arms. Her tender skin warmed every inch of me, protecting me from the cold ocean water that enveloped us. Our bodies bobbed together as her fluttering feet kept us aloft.
“I was a pathetic creature when you first found me,” she said, brushing back my hair. “Lethargic from countless days on that dark dry boat. You must think of me as a silly seaweed, detached from the forest of the sea and floating wherever the waves take her.”
Her tentacles explored my body while she spoke, smooth and slick. I shook my head to assure her I never thought she was silly or powerless, only majestic. Alluring. I wasn’t at liberty to voice this though. I simply shook my head and smiled back at her.
The cuffs around my limbs were not the only stricture impressing its tightness on my body. The leather pants I wore were tight by nature, and now they were soaked through, becoming a straightjacket against my limbs. They grew tighter still as Sadine teased excitement from her wandering touch, sending a rush of blood to stiffen my shaft.
She kissed me again, sealing her mouth against mine without letting seawater spoil the sweetness of her tongue. Then she sucked the air from my lungs and sent a swarm of bubbles from her gills before filling me with cool, fresh air again.
“You’re kind,” she said. “Not to dismiss me as some lifeless fish. I want to make up for my first impression though. I want to prove it to you.”
Her arms were nimble and quick. She unfastened the laces that held my vest closed, then worked
the tips of her tentacles down my chest until they reached my fly. I bent at the hips, leaning forward to nuzzle my nose against her cheek while she set me free of my tight clothes. My nose trailed up her angular jawline, then probed against her earlobe.
As my nose explored further, I traced the fine ridges of her gills, just below her ear. They were like ribbons of silk, so delicate and smooth. Sadine giggled and exhaled as I explored this sensitive area, sending a series of tiny bubbles outward that tickled my nose.
My back straightened out again as my fly opened fully, letting my erect length stand freely into the ocean. Warm, slippery tentacles wrapped around it, stroking slowly as I began to moan. A body’s worth of air escaped my nose in a long, satisfying exhalation while Sadine worked on my sex.
“Careful,” she said. “Air is precious down here.” She kissed me once more, tracing her tongue against the lower ridge of my top teeth while my lungs rebelled. They were empty, and longing, but Sadine had a point to make. She nibbled at my lower lip and pulled back as my eyes widened, begging for her to return.
She held my stare and continued to stroke me, torturing my empty lungs. She waited until my chest began to spasm before she pressed her lips to mine and breathed quickly, inflating my body with a cooling rush of breath.
“Now don’t waste it again,” she said, pulling away and releasing her grasp on my sex so her arms could wrap around my waistline. Her hold slackened and her body drifted extra inches from mine while her rear tentacles rippled against the water, speeding us deeper and away.
I had lost interest in what we swam away from, enraptured by her lithe body moving through the water with expert grace. We swam, and I paid no mind to our destination. The rush of water around us, the bubbles we left behind, and the warm embrace of my krakeness were all I had attention for.
Beautiful pink breasts, round and plump, jiggled against the water’s movement. They floated in this salty water, almost levitating from her chest as her dark blue nipples pointed toward the sky above. They glowed a warm, radiant hue beneath a ray of sunlight that penetrated the ocean’s surface and filtered through the water like an aquatic spotlight focusing my eyes on her, the ocean’s star.
