Veritas

by St Clare, Kelly

  Caspian heard her and inched toward the bilge door. “I’ll find him.”

  “Why is your face like that?” the kraken demanded, bringing its head down. She fell flat again as it poked her in the side a few times with its tentacle.

  She wheezed, “Like what?”

  “All horrified. That’s all I ever see,” the kraken said woefully.

  The creature had just destroyed Felicity. What did it expect?

  Ebba managed to prop onto her elbows. “I’m not horrified at ye so much as horrified at what ye’ve done to our ship.”

  The glow of the creature’s eyes dimmed as it pulled back and surveyed the ship. Then the glow blazed again. “You were chasing me. Hunting me down like so many before you. And do you know what I did to them, female mortal?”

  She gasped, quickly nodding.

  The kraken stilled. “You . . . you do?”

  “Aye,” Ebba rushed to say. “Ye latch onto the ship and pull them to Davy Jones’.”

  “I would never,” the kraken said, holding a tentacle to its chest.

  “She means the deep sea, Mr. Kraken.”

  The creature glared at Plank. “I don’t like that name.”

  Ebba sat up. “What’s yer name then?”

  “You’re only talkin’ to me because ye don’t want to die.”

  “Aye, but also because yer much di’ferent from what I thought ye’d be.”

  The kraken flopped across their bow, a tentacle over its eyes. Two of his tentacles crashed down on their bowsprit, snapping the jutting point clean off. Stubby groaned low.

  Ebba glanced around the ship again. Was the water level of the ocean that close before?

  “Tis my curse to be misunderstood,” the creature said, sighing heavily.

  Ebba got to one knee. “Well, if ye’d like to convince us otherwise, ye’re more than welcome. My name be Ebba-Viva Fairisles.”

  He lifted the tentacle and studied her. “I don’t have a name. People always call me kraken.”

  “But ye said ye don’t like that name,” she said. “We’ll just have to pick ye one sometime. It ain’t nothin’ to be destroyin’ things about.”

  “You seem nice,” the creature clicked. “I’ve never really stopped to talk to one of you before. How do I know you’re not mean? You were hunting me.”

  Ebba got to her feet and stepped toward him. “Let me clear the huntin’ thing up. We weren’t after ye. We were lookin’ for part o’ a weapon that we need to save the realm. Is there any chance ye have it?”

  “A weapon?” the kraken’s eyes popped, and he covered his mouth with a tentacle tip, only dropping it to say, “A quest. Do tell.”

  Locks murmured in her ear. “The ship be sinkin’, lass. Is there anythin’ ye need?”

  “What are you speaking about? Are you plotting against me?” the kraken roared, making her arm hair stand on end.

  “Hold on a minute,” Ebba said, her heart sinking. “Our ship be goin’ down, and my father’s askin’ if there’s any keepsakes I need.”

  “Oh . . . sorry. I’ll wait.”

  She couldn’t even think about losing Felicity right now. The ship had always been in her life. But with a kraken before her, sinking down to cry or running about in a panic wasn’t an option. Ebba’s thoughts went to her beads, but they were back in her hair. “Just the scrapbook if it ain’t already damaged and the bangle Marigold gave me. It be in my port trunk.”

  Locks nodded and hurried off.

  Jagger approached on her other side.

  The creature’s eyes sank to what he held. “You hurt me with those sharp things.”

  “Sorry about that,” Jagger answered. “We were tryin’ to save the ship. But this one is special. It makes a person tell the truth.”

  “You lie.”

  “Then let me lay it upon ye and ask ye a question,” the pirate said plainly.

  The kraken narrowed his eyes but dangled a tentacle before Jagger. She and her crew had done a number on the sea creature. Cuts marred the length of all his limbs barring one.

  Jagger laid the flat of veritas against a sucker. “What be yer saddest memory?”

  The kraken’s eyes bulged, and the answer rushed from his beak. “My mother was killed by hunters seeking a trophy. Five ships. I watched it all from below. She sank down past me afterward. They’d cut her beak and eyes out and taken three of her tentacles.”

  Ebba covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “My mother and father were killed,” Jagger replied quietly.

  The kraken studied him. “Your sword works. I tried to resist and couldn’t. Rest it on Ebba-Viva Fairisles, please.”

  Jagger did as bid.

  “Ask her if she really thinks my scales are beautiful,” the kraken demanded.

  Ebba was beginning to think the creature might have a vain streak. But something about him reached in and squeezed her heart. To her, he seemed unbearably lonely. And she feared that fate enough to not want another to suffer it. Even if he’d destroyed their home.

  Jagger reached forward and gripped her arm, making her realize she was weaving on the spot. “Are ye okay?”

  Felicity was sinking. “Aye,” she replied.

  He let go but hovered close as he rested the flat of the blade on her palm. “Do ye think this creature’s scales are beautiful?” Jagger asked her.

  The urge to tell the truth was undeniable.

  “Aye,” she answered. “They be made up of so many purples and blues and silver; I know there be too many to count, and I can’t sort them into just one color. I could look at your scales all day.”

  The kraken turned away and appeared to wipe his eyes. He didn’t turn back but said, “Ask her if she was hunting me.”

  “Were you huntin’ him?” Jagger asked softly.

  “Nay,” she obeyed the veritas. “We were tryin’ to catch ye but only to find the next part o’ the weapon.”

  The kraken spun around, sending water pouring over the deck. “A weapon? I don’t have a weapon. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Ebba sighed. Great. But that was a worry for when the ship wasn’t sinking.

  The kraken wiped his face again. “Are you mad at me for breaking your ship?”

  Jagger repeated his words.

  Ebba glanced around. “I ain’t mad so much. Though yer nature don’t give ye the right to hurt others. I’m mostly just sad, and I don’t know what life will be like now Felicity be sinkin’.” Her breath caught. “I’ve spent most o’ my eighteen years aboard her. She’s my h-home.” She blinked back tears, trying to remember there were more pressing matters.

  Jagger lifted the sword, and when she stumbled, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “We can heal yer cuts for ye,” Ebba told the creature, sniffing hard.

  She turned and saw Stubby and Peg-leg still stood there, silently watching in case the kraken turned ugly again. Locks was readying the rowboat—Plank, too, she assumed, considering he was nowhere in sight.

  They’d brought out five barrels. She watched as they disappeared below deck again and scanned for Caspian.

  He crouched by the bilge door over a motionless Barrels. She gasped, and the prince glanced up.

  “He’s okay. Breathing,” Caspian called softly. “Looks like he was knocked out by something in the hold.”

  Ebba sighed in relief.

  “Where’s Grubby?” she blurted.

  Pushing away Jagger’s arm, she shouted her question, spinning in a circle. “Where’s Grubby?”

  The kraken lifted a tentacle. Wrapped inside the slimy limb was her father.

  “You mean . . . this one?” he asked her.

  “Grubby,” Ebba choked, clutching her chest in the panicked second it took to remember her father could breathe under water.

  The creature appeared a smidgen guilty as he laid Grubby on the butchered deck. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Sorry, I don’t like selkies.”

  “I’m with ye
there,” Stubby called over their heads.

  Grubby was pale. His head was covered in blood.

  Ebba whirled on the kraken. “What did ye do to him?”

  Peg-leg and Stubby dropped down beside her.

  “Knocked in the noggin’,” Peg-leg declared.

  The creature’s tentacles lowered. “I stopped killing him when you spoke to me. I was going to tear him in two, but I didn’t.”

  Heat crept up her neck.

  “On tiptoes, little nymph,” Stubby muttered under his breath.

  Right. They could still be torn apart.

  “He’s breathin’, but his eyes be all wonky. Look,” Stubby said.

  Ebba turned back. Grubby’s pupils were different sizes. “Will he be okay? The purgium”

  Peg-leg shook his head. “After last time, I’m not sure, lass. I say we keep that for a last resort.”

  She deflated. But he was right. They had no idea if the purgium had just healed Grubby’s head last time or the taint as well. Did it heal one thing or both? And if the taint wasn’t gone, and the purgium healed him, Grubby might die.

  Ebba rubbed her temples.

  “Is the purgium what you were going to use to heal my cuts?” the kraken said. “Because I’d appreciate that. My flesh doesn’t knit together; I’ll just form big scars, and it’ll be harder to move. You should’ve seen my grandfather in the end. He was practically immobile.” The kraken shuddered.

  Jagger answered, “Aye.” He glanced at Ebba.

  Still seething at the kraken for hurting Grubby, Ebba nevertheless strode to Caspian and held out her hand.

  “Are you injured?” he asked.

  “Nothin’ that won’t heal itself,” she said. Which meant the purgium wouldn’t bother. It only dealt in the permanent and terminal.

  She gripped the tube but gasped as a buzz akin to lightning struck her momentarily dumb. In a daze, she pulled up the leg of her slops. Before, scabs had covered them. Now. . . . “Forgot about those.”

  “What did it take from you?” Caspian said, frantically searching her limbs.

  The prince turned over her right hand and they stared at her blackened fingernails, leached of the usual fleshy pink color. As though hammers were brought down on each one in turn.

  Ebba turned over her left. The same. “That be right fierce,” she promptly decided.

  The prince hummed. “Uh. . . .”

  “Ye don’t like them?” she asked, holding both hands out to study her darkened nails. “I do. The shanties about me just became next level.”

  Not waiting for a reply from Caspian, she approached the kraken. “The purgium will only work if ye’ve had an injury, inside or out, that will leave ye with a perm’nent change. And ye should be warned that—”

  The creature was darting peeks at her, its eyes just visible over the splintered remains of the bulwark.

  Ebba sighed at the sulking kraken. “Ye have to understand that my fathers be the most precious-like thing to me in the realm.”

  “How many do you have?” the kraken squeaked.

  “Six,” she said, glancing at the unconscious Barrels and Grubby. “And I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  “Six?” the kraken asked as he held out a tentacle to her. “Is that normal?”

  “Nay,” she said. “And I’ll tell ye how it happened another time, if ye should like.”

  The creature’s cheeks lifted in what Ebba assumed was a smile.

  She pressed the purgium against the kraken’s cuts and watched as the creature jolted. Ebba’s mouth dried as at least half of the creature’s suckers disappeared.

  “Sink me,” whispered Peg-leg.

  The cuts healed. Ebba rotated in a circle, watching as all of the kraken’s cuts faded . . . and more suckers disappeared.

  “Whoa,” the creature said with a click.

  Ebba gripped the tube tight, ready for his wrath. “Uh . . . some of yer suckers be gone.”

  “I wish the rest would go.” He scowled.

  Peg-leg and Stubby shared a relieved look.

  Felicity lurched, and the kraken jolted in alarm, lashing out a tentacle. There was a mighty crack, and Ebba watched their figurehead—the mermaid that had always rested on the bow—sail through the air and hit the water in the distance with a faint splash.

  Her heart plummeted to the bottom of the sea.

  No ship could survive without a figurehead. Every pirate knew that.

  “Abandon ship,” Stubby called dully.

  The order was a physical blow. Ebba squeezed her eyes shut and absorbed the pain of it. She couldn’t think about losing her home until everyone was safe.

  Jagger spoke to the kraken. “We need to get in the rowboat now, but will ye wait?”

  Ignoring the kraken’s reply, Ebba strode with the others up to the starboard side where Grubby was being lowered into the smaller vessel.

  An escaped sob had her turning back.

  Plank stood in the middle of the ship, his feet far too close to the top of the greedy water. He stared into the black sea, face wet from the torrents of tears spilling from his eyes.

  “Plank?” she asked, taking a step in his direction.

  Did he hear her?

  Ebba’s legs unlocked. She hurried back, taking her father’s hand. “M’hearty, I know it be sad, but we need to get off the ship.”

  Though Plank cried, his dark eyes were vacant. “Nay, I’m with her until the end. All this time, I should’ve been with her.”

  She reeled from him, lips numbing. “Ye don’t mean to go down with the ship. Ye don’t mean that.”

  Ebba spun away, searching the deck. “Locks.”

  He glanced up, one leg over the bulwark.

  “Plank said he ain’t comin’.”

  It wasn’t clear if Locks heard her words, but those still on deck turned back at the panic in her voice. Two of her fathers slipped down the slanting deck to join them.

  Felicity groaned, and the helm began to steadily submerge. Huge bubbles erupted around them. And still, Plank didn’t budge.

  Ebba gripped his wrist. “Ye’re comin’ whether ye like it or not,” she snarled at him. Why was he doing this? Everyone else was as devastated, but no one was stupid enough to take it to mean they should drown along with the ship.

  “Nay, little nymph.” Plank shook her off. “I’m stayin’ here.”

  “Ye fool. Get off the ship. Right now.”

  He knelt. “I was never meant to be parted from her. I know that now. Leave me here. I’m ready.”

  Ebba gripped his belt and pulled in earnest as Felicity began a steady descent. “Then ye’ll kill me too. I ain’t leavin’ without ye.”

  That roused him. But only to argue the case. “Ye can’t stop this.”

  “I can,” she said.

  Locks and Stubby reached for her father. Ebba gasped, staggering back as Plank swung at Stubby, nearly connecting with his jaw.

  Locks tried something different, wrapping his arms around the other man. “We know, matey. We know what she means to ye. But ye can’t be doin’ this.”

  “I told ye I’d only stay until the ship sank.”

  “And we told ye that was fine, but we were lyin’,” Locks said gently.

  Water crept up over their boots, and urgency clawed at Ebba’s throat. There wasn’t any time for this. She turned to the kraken who watched with rapt attention. “Can ye put him in the boat for us?” she asked.

  The kraken stirred uneasily. “I don’t want to get involved in family drama,” he hedged.

  “Ye’re clearly content-like to watch it. He’s only sad because ye damaged the ship.” Ebba hurled the accusation. “Please, can ye help instead o’ watchin’?”

  The three of her fathers were struggling. Plank fought to free himself from Locks as Stubby shoved both of them in the direction of the rowboat. Ebba stared around what remained of Felicity’s slanted deck and swallowed. The others were already over the side and shouting for them.

>   She placed her hands on her hips and faced the kraken, who rolled his eyes.

  “Fine,” he said, puffing out a breath.

  The grunts and yells of her struggling fathers turned to yelps of surprise as the kraken wrapped all three in a great tentacle and lifted them over Ebba’s head.

  She climbed up the deck and peered over the side, scanning the rowboat. “Barrels, Grubby, Peg-leg, Caspian, Jagger, Locks, Stubby.” She glanced at her last father. “Plank.”

  “Get in,” Jagger said, jaw clenched.

  “Have we got all the parts?” she asked.

  Caspian held up the purgium. Ebba could see the veritas. The dynami was still tucked in Plank’s belt. “The scio,” she shouted. “Where is it?”

  Stubby righted himself from where the kraken had dumped him unceremoniously in the rowboat. “I have it on me, lass.” He felt in his vest and drew out the tube.

  “Now, will ye get in?” Jagger said.

  Ebba swung her leg over Felicity’s bulwark and hardly needed the rope ladder’s help, so far keeled was the ship as it sank.

  Her feet made a hollow thud as she descended and accepted Jagger’s hand to steady herself. He immediately flipped her hand, studying her new dark nails, and grunted before releasing her.

  “I can paint yers if ye want,” she shot at him.

  She avoided looking at Plank, who was pinned under Locks on the boat floor and struggling to throw off the larger male, glancing back at the ship instead.

  Her chest squeezed to near-unbearable levels. Felicity was sinking.

  This was really happening.

  “Let’s row, lads,” Peg-leg said, face pale and drawn. “We want to be out o’ here to escape the tow.”

  Jagger and Stubby grabbed the oars and Ebba took a seat at the front of the rowboat by herself, staring at Felicity. The pace was slow-going with their load, and a leaden quiet settled heavy upon the occupants of the vessel.

  As the distance increased between them and their destroyed home, so too did the oppressive silence.

  She’d crawled upon those cedar decks. Then she’d stumbled, walked, run, jumped, climbed. The wood there was smooth from her presence; the rungs of the ladders, the posts holding her hammock, the lid of her trunk, and the edge of the crow’s nest. She knew that ship. If Ebba had six fathers, Felicity had always been her mother.