Veritas

by St Clare, Kelly

  Glancing down, she caught sight of their large fish tails waving languidly beneath them.

  All three of the mermaids were smiling, their teeth square and spaced apart and their eyes watchful—though crinkled in a similar way to Barrels’ when his numbers tallied up right.

  Ebba cleared her throat. “Ahoy.”

  The creatures jabbered at her in unison, melodious voices clamoring in an echoing ring. The one to her right patted her, clucking, the sound like the peal of a bell. The one on the left pursed her lips, shaking Ebba’s forearm in an admonishing kind of way. Meanwhile, the third spoke at her as she continued swimming in a wide circle. Inspecting her?

  They could’ve been calling her fish lips, and Ebba wouldn’t have known, but their kindness and worry seemed plain. Her fright dispersed somewhat. “It’s been a helluva day,” she told them.

  The two mermaids touching her melted into her sides, hugging her tight. Impossibly, Ebba could almost feel their love for her.

  . . . Odd.

  Shouts and splashes pranced across the black surface, and Ebba squinted into the distance for her fathers, silently hurrying them along. Who knew what else lurked in the depths.

  ”Over here,” she shouted to her crew.

  That kraken had a bloody strong sneeze.

  A large swell rolled in from her left. Ebba glanced back and nearly screamed. The kraken peeked above the surface, just his eyes showing. Which was to say his entire forehead too. So a mass about half the size of a ship was visible.

  “Ye didn’t chomp me.” Ebba attempted to console him.

  The kraken emerged a little more. Not enough to fully show his beak, so as well as the clicking, a loud gargle accompanied his reply. “You got the thing out. I can feel it.”

  He sighed, and water sprayed from his mouth as the gargle turned into a geyser. “My mouths close properly again. Hey, how many mouths do I have?”

  “Ugh.” Ebba’s mind stalled as she recalled the seven-inch daggers he called teeth. “Uh, s-six.”

  “And that’s it? You have the thing?” he asked, staring at what she still clutched in one hand.

  Ebba shifted her gaze, warmth hitting her chest. The mermaids either side of her sighed and nuzzled in.

  “Aye, it be the fifth part,” she said.

  “It felt a lot bigger—”

  The mermaids listened to the conversation, heads tilted to the side as they swiveled between Ebba, the kraken—who they didn’t seem to fear—and the approach of her fathers.

  Ebba inhaled, suddenly exhausted. And only a speck of her fatigue originated from almost being eaten, punctured and drowned. The rest was simple heartache.

  “Matey,” she called to the kraken. “Can ye introduce me-like to yer friends here? They saved my life.” Or nearly killed her, but considering there were three of them and they really liked her, it was in Ebba’s best interest to go with the former. Especially seeing as they held her up in the water. She couldn’t feel her wounds from the kraken’s teeth through the cold of the sea, but no doubt they’d make themselves known soon enough.

  The kraken slapped a tentacle to his forehead several times. “Where are my manners? These are the Jendu.” He lowered his voice. “Sorry, they’re so annoying. I sort of have a deal with their kind.”

  Ebba stared at him as she processed that. One, seeing as the Jendu didn’t react to that comment, they clearly couldn’t speak pirate. And two. . . . “How long have they followed the rowboat for?”

  “Since we became friends.”

  Was that what he called destroying Felicity?

  “Ebba!”

  She waved at her fathers, attention still fixed on the kraken. “So what’s yer deal with them?”

  The monster dropped his gaze, swishing a limp tentacle through the water before him. “I protect them from the Capricorn.”

  He continued swishing the tentacle, avoiding her eyes.

  “And. . . ,” she prompted.

  “And they don’t curse me with disease for that one time I accidentally ate one of their babies.”

  The kraken wailed at her shocked expression, the thick tops of his tentacles shaking like shoulders as he sobbed. “I didn’t know,” he clicked, chopping up the word. “I thought it was a red fish. We get those here.”

  The kraken was one accident after the next. Perhaps the Jendu had cursed him with bad luck instead.

  “They have one of my scales and say they’ll work their magic unless I’m their constant bodyguard.” The kraken sniffed.

  “Why don’t they just curse the Capricorn instead o’ threatenin’ ye?” she asked him.

  The kraken rolled its eyes. “Did you even hear a word I just said? They have my scale, not one of the Capricorn’s. Plus, their curses stick better on land-beings. Being out of water makes me feel fat, but I can cross an island if I have to whereas Capricorn are confined to water. Makes me more curseable.”

  Ebba stared at him, briefly distracted by thoughts of him slithering across land. What would that even look like?

  “Lass.” Stubby leaned over the lip of the boat, reaching for her. “Are ye okay, lass?”

  Her crew’s faces showed alarm, barring Grubby whom she couldn’t see. Even Plank had roused himself, concern rampant on his face. Caspian was pale. And dare she even think it, but was there a flicker of apprehension in Jagger’s silver orbs?

  “Aye, a few wounds in me but nothin’ too serious, I’m thinkin’.” She was definitely bleeding, and who knew what her blood would draw to this spot? She should get into the rowboat now.

  “Let’s get ye in.” Peg-leg’s throat sounded clogged.

  The Jendu either side shoved her down under the surface, their hands raking her skin and scalp, tearing at her clothes. They wrenched her up again and Ebba emerged to yelling and swinging oars. The Jendu’s eyes were huge as they backed away, dragging her with them as though she were a prized doll.

  “Wait,” Ebba spluttered.

  When the yelling faded, she repeated, “Wait. Who has the scio?” No way was she trusting the yet-unnamed kraken to smooth this over, considering his ability to attract drama and his unchecked interest in witnessing it.

  Barrels stretched out to hand her the scio, and Ebba briefly noted that she was yet again holding two of the weapon’s parts before turning to the Jendu she was clamped against.

  “What was that just now?” Ebba asked.

  “You stink,” the one who’d been circling earlier sang.

  Ebba’s brows lifted. Maybe the kraken was right about them.

  The patting Jendu clucked again. “What Emphamiza is trying to say is, you were in baby-slayer’s mouth.”

  It certainly hadn’t smelled like good things in there. “That’s fair enough then, Emphysema.”

  “We were cleaning you, mortal,” the third Jendu said, flashing her the half-apologetic, half-admonishing smile.

  Ebba cleared her throat after noting the heightened concern on their faces. Did Jendu always get this attached? She called to her fathers, “They were cleaning me.”

  Locks threw his hands in the air. “Can ye tell them to make it look less like they be drownin’ ye next time?”

  “My fathers thought ye were drownin’ me,” she explained. “That’s why they were swingin’ and cussin’.”

  All three of the Jendu appeared mortified. One of the creatures holding Ebba swam to the rowboat and clutched Caspian’s hand. “But please,” she said to the baffled prince, “we would never kill your daughter. We, we. . . .” The Jendu blinked. “We love her.”

  What now?

  The Jendu who was speaking appeared to be as confused as Ebba. She shook her head and said, “I mean, we revere our young too.” She accompanied that with a scathing look at the kraken, hissing, “Baby-slayer.”

  “You have terrible hair,” the kraken replied flatly.

  Ebba had to give him that. She repeated the Jendu’s words for the rowboat—the amended version, not the ‘we love her’ weirdness. She watched
Caspian stammer away the title of father and the way Jagger’s lips spread in a wide grin the longer it went on.

  “Thank ye for yer help,” Ebba said to the sea people as her fathers’ outrage simmered and then extinguished altogether.

  “Pass it here, would ye?” Locks took the scio from her and then faced the Jendu. “Thank ye,” he said simply. “Our daughter is our world. We owe ye a debt.”

  She sucked in a breath. Her fathers didn’t hand those out every day.

  The Jendu spoke to him, their voices intertwining in pleasant song that was just a jumble to her now. The scio really was underrated, she realized. So much could go wrong without the ability to communicate.

  Ebba removed her arms from over the two immortals’ shoulders and then grabbed the lip of the rowboat with her free hand. Plank reached down and hooked his fingers around one of the many belts still layering her torso and heaved her inside.

  Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie.

  She brought half the Dynami with her, but that was the least of her concerns. Sprawled over Grubby’s limp feet, Ebba didn’t immediately move, now keenly aware of every wound she’d received in the kraken’s mouth.

  “Yeouch,” she gasped, shifting her hand to hold the wound over her right ribs as Locks kept up his conversation with the Jendu.

  A hand shook her shoulder. “Are ye okay?”

  Ebba lifted her eyes and merely looked at Jagger.

  His eyes raked her body, settling first on her thighs and then on the hand she’d pressed against the belts—more importantly, against what lay beneath them.

  “Ye’re hurt,” he said in a low voice. Jagger leaned down and picked her up, his feet either side of Grubby’s.

  With her in tow, Jagger stood on one foot and—in what had to be one of the most impressive displays of sea legs she’d ever experienced—used his other foot to nudge her unconscious father’s legs out of the way.

  Jagger barked at Peg-leg to move and then deposited her carefully between two benches—her head on one bench, butt on the bottom of the rowboat, and legs propped over the next bench seat.

  “I’m all right,” she complained, flustered by the lingering feel of Jagger’s arms on her body. “Don’t make such a fuss.”

  Locks appeared in her vision. “I’ll be the judge o’ that.”

  Jagger sat next to her as Locks began unbuckling the corset of belts.

  She glanced down. Her slops were stained pale pink from where her thighs bled. The ocean had washed away most of the red, but she could see fresh blood oozing up through the material.

  One stab wound high on her right haunch was making itself known, along with the one on the back of her elbow, but the worst pain was all for her right side. She relayed this to Locks, who grunted. He left the belt underneath her hand in place and freed his dagger to slice through the bottom laces of her jerkin. He lifted the bottom half of her tunic.

  The faces overhead gasped, the kraken joining in as he blotted out all trace of the sky above.

  “Ye’ve got a lot of scratches, lass. But the one under the belt be the only one that worries me. I’ll leave the belt there for the moment. It be stoppin’ the better part of the bleedin’. Are ye breathin’ okay?”

  Ebba inhaled. “Aye, think so.”

  “Let me know if that be changin’.” Locks lowered the tunic and returned to her legs.

  “Are the Jendu gone?” she asked as he hacked off her slops into shorts.

  “Aye, little nymph,” Plank said. “From our sight at least.”

  She lolled her head toward him, searching his face. “Are ye back then, m’hearty?”

  He swallowed and smiled but made no answer.

  The smile was forced. The dreamer’s glaze to his eyes had peeled away and left behind rotting deck boards. Ebba had no idea how to fix a deck with only rotting boards to work with.

  Her attention was stolen by Locks’ prodding fingers. She bit down on her lip.

  “He got ye good a few times, lass,” he said quietly, directing the others to rip the lower half of her ruined slops into strips and wash them in the seawater.

  “Brandy,” he ordered.

  Silence reigned.

  Locks glared over his shoulder. “Stubby, ye hoardin’ sod, give me yer brandy. I know ye brought some. I need it to a’hygiene her wounds.”

  Pain was coming.

  Ebba braced herself as Locks uncorked the bottle of brandy with his teeth. Her eyes found Caspian’s for an instant before her father took a long swig and then tipped the alcohol into the wounds on her thigh.

  One hand was pressed against her deepest wound, but Ebba lifted her other hand—gripping the new part—and pressed it in a fist against her mouth. She shrieked behind closed lips, and her blackened nails cut into her palm as Locks continued, dousing both of her bare legs.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Those be done.”

  The gentle peal of bells rang across the water.

  “The Jendu say we should put this under the binding,” Barrels said, holding up a bunch of flaccid purple seaweed, the scio in his other hand.

  Locks stared at the sea plant. “What is it?”

  Barrels turned back to ask the Jendu, saying after, “It will draw out any infection from the baby-slayer’s teeth. And help the bleeding stop. They seem insistent that their ‘dearest one’ must stop bleeding as soon as possible.”

  Aye, the rum belonged in her body, not out. Ebba shrugged as Locks glanced her way. “Sounds like we better use it, then.”

  Her father placed the seaweed over her wounds, keeping back a few pieces for the punctures on her stomach and right arm. He took the strips of her ruined slops, soaked in seawater, and bound the seaweed in place. She sighed at the instant cooling on her skin. Some of the ache leeched from the stab wounds.

  “That seaweed feels good,” she said. “Say thank ye to the Jendu, please.”

  Barrels repeated her message. “They just keep saying no blood, no blood.”

  “Why?” Jagger asked. He glanced at her father, making her aware he’d been staring at her beforehand.

  “You got the next part, Ebba?” Caspian called from the opposite end as the others conversed.

  The part was in the fist she’d held against her mouth. She lowered her arm. “Aye, I did.”

  “Read it then,” Peg-leg urged. “What does it say, lass?”

  Barrels straightened. “Yes, my dear. Read it aloud.”

  “Ye’re kiddin’?” Jagger said. “Ye want to do a readin’ lesson? Now?”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.

  Ebba stared at the writing on the new tube, but as Locks tied off the last of the rag bandages on her thighs, she gave up.

  She slapped it into Jagger’s palm, and his eyes flew to hers, widening into huge circles. He gasped and she jolted at the shocked sound.

  The part tumbled from both of their hands, rolling over Grubby to land on the bottom of the rowboat.

  “What’s wrong with ye? What happened?” she demanded, staring at him. “And why are ye pantin’?”

  Jagger’s throat worked several times before he tore his attention from Ebba and bent to pick up the tube.

  He read the word etched on the side of the part, still breathing heavily.

  Ebba exchanged a look with Stubby. “Jagger? Are ye okay?”

  He glanced up at her, shoulders tensing. “Amare,” he said. “It says amare.”

  “Amare,” Caspian said, scrutinizing the object. “Love.”

  The prince lifted his chin to regard Jagger. “What did you just see?”

  “Nothin’,” Jagger said shortly, shoving the tube at Peg-leg.

  “Sink me, I don’t want it.” Peg-leg surged to his feet. The boat rocked violently.

  Jagger tried to shove the amare at Barrels next. He held a hand to his mouth and waved the thing away.

  “I’d rather not,” Barrels said.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Stubby growled at the pirate, hands lifted def
ensively.

  “I’ll take it,” Locks offered over his shoulder.

  “No!” several of her fathers yelled in unison.

  Jagger shoved the part at Caspian. “Take it, landlubber.”

  The prince whipped his hand behind his back. “I can’t hold it; I only have one hand. I need it.”

  “Good lad,” Peg-leg said with an approving nod. “Told ye pity could get ye things. It’s a currency of its own. But turn up the sadness a mite.”

  “Ye’re usin’ yer arm as an excuse,” Jagger grated. “The purgium be in yer belt. Put this one in yer belt too.”

  “Aye,” Caspian said in relief. “I can’t hold two at once. I’ll be blasted away. Might destroy the rowboat.”

  “Viva can, maybe ye can too.” Jagger’s eyes darkened as he leaned to slip the part in the prince’s belt.

  “I’ll take it,” Plank said quietly.

  “Uh,” Barrels replied after a beat. “Are you certain that’s wise?”

  Plank raised his head, reaching out a hand without further comment.

  Jagger shrugged and thwacked the tube in her father’s palm.

  “I’ll fix up yer chest wounds now,” Locks told her.

  He rolled the bottom of her tunic higher, winding back the wet material to the only remaining belt that covered the deepest of her wounds.

  Locks tapped the hand she kept pressed over the belt and wound. “Give me a look then, lass.”

  Sighing, Ebba lifted her hand, and with nimble fingers, her father undid the last belt and hurriedly directed Jagger to press down on the bared wound.

  He did so, picking up some of the seaweed and the last of the rags from her torn slops. He placed this over the jagged, flapping wound just under her ribs and pressed down firmly.

  “Yeouch,” she spat at him.

  “Would ye rather bleed to death?” he shot back.

  If it would prove him wrong? . . . Maybe.

  Ebba averted her eyes, except rather than ignoring his presence as she’d intended, she glanced down her body, realizing just how little she was wearing. Her slops resembled some odd version of shorts that stopped at the top of her thighs. Across her chest, her tunic and jerkin were in place, but below? Bare skin.