The Story Raider

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  “He needs to see to the safety of his passengers and crew. He will stay behind until everyone is safe.”

  “I have to find him. He needs my help.” I gestured to Karlith and Dylun. “Help them get Gryfelle to shore. Take everyone you can in the boat.”

  “Tanwen!” Father’s voice was sharp. “You need to get in that boat right now.”

  “I can swim,” I said frantically. “I have to help!”

  A huge stream of fire blasted into the starboard side of the Cethorelle, and she listed sharply. I stumbled into Father, and somehow he held us both upright. The Cethorelle started taking on water, swallowing great gulps of it onto the deck.

  I pointed toward the boat again. “Gryfelle and Karlith are helpless in there. Dylun’s trying to protect the cure. They need you right now. I don’t. Please help them. You know only Mor, Zel, and I can battle these strands and give anyone else a chance. Help them. Please, Daddy.” I hugged him quickly. “I love you.”

  I slipped away into the smoke before he could stop me.

  “Mor?” I called. “Wylie?”

  I stumbled into someone and realized it was Warmil. “War! Where is everyone?”

  “Some of the crew were bailing water by the quarterdeck, but Mor’s ordering everyone off.”

  “Do we have enough boats?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe.”

  I glanced toward the shore. Kanac was so close. Swimming distance, probably, if we could get away from the strands long enough.

  “War, can you swim?”

  “Aye.”

  “Find anyone who can’t, and get them to the boat on the port side. My father is there.”

  “I can’t find Aeron.”

  Warmil would never leave without finding Aeron first. “She was with me and Wylie coming up the stairs.” I shot a sunbeam into a knot of night strands. “Let’s find them.”

  We splashed through several inches of water and bumped into a few crewmen.

  “Jule!” I cried. He stood on the quarterdeck by the wheel. A cord of inky night was wrapped around his throat, and the color had left his face.

  I prayed he would close his eyes, then I blasted a strand of sunlight into his face.

  I hoped I hadn’t ruined his eyesight forever, but the strand snapped away from his throat. Breath and color returned to him. In the next second, a strand of smoke wrapped around each of my wrists. Then two more around my ankles. I met Warmil’s gaze. Gasped as the strands jerked me up into the air, high above the deck of the sinking Cethorelle.

  As I floated above the ship in their grip, a strange thought passed through my mind: They don’t want to kill me.

  If they wanted to kill me, they would have gone for my throat or downed me with fire. Instead, smoke was lifting me up.

  Why?

  Who was it?

  What did they want?

  Before any of these questions found answers, all four strands of smoke were blasted away. I tumbled from the air, plummeting toward the watery deck. But before I smashed against the wood, a cushion of air caught me and set me on my feet. I looked up, and there was Mor, hands outstretched and eyes wild.

  “Tannie, are you hurt?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure.”

  I felt about and found a few sore spots, but I didn’t care.

  “Did the boat make it off?” The water was up to my knees now. We would have to climb toward the stern, now rising up in the air.

  “Aye, I think so. I ordered the ship abandoned.”

  “But you’ll stay?”

  “Aye. Until everyone’s safe. I don’t run anymore.”

  “Then I’ll stay too.”

  I expected him to argue, but he grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

  As we climbed for the stern, a sudden sadness overwhelmed me. I had come to love this dumb vessel with all its roasted fish and salty broth and green-faced seasickness. It had been home for three moons, and now it was sinking to the bottom of the Menfor Sea.

  Wylie appeared through a cloud of smoke, clinging to the stern and holding on to a crewman being dragged overboard by a rope of night.

  I gasped and thrust a ray of daylight toward them both. The night strand popped and disappeared, and the crewman smacked down onto the stern. But at least he was free. He dragged himself back on deck.

  What was left of it, anyway.

  I clambered toward Wylie, who looked just about spent. I wondered how long he had been keeping a hold on that crewman. I reached out my hand to help him back over the rail. He grimaced, and we grabbed wrists.

  But then his eyes went wide, and his body jolted. Confusion clouded his face.

  He had stopped climbing, and his grip around my wrist loosened.

  I looked down and saw the strand of molten metal protruding from his chest.

  “Wylie!” I cried out. “Wylie, no!”

  He still looked confused. Puzzled. As though he wondered why his body had gone cold. Why his breath wouldn’t come. Why he was slipping from the stern of the ship into the sea.

  His entire weight dragged him backward, and I couldn’t hold on. He slipped from my grip and tumbled into the ocean.

  I screamed. And screamed again. I watched helplessly as Wylie sank below the surface, eyes frozen open. Blank. Unseeing.

  I gripped the stern and tried to conjure something—an idea, a thought, a story—that might help. Sunshine to battle the night, or a rainbow of color to fight the gray panic overwhelming me. Anything.

  But the only thing that came was another hollow scream.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  TANWEN

  Two hands gripped my shoulders from behind. “Come, Tannie.” Mor’s voice.

  I couldn’t move. I stared into the water where Wylie had been a moment before.

  “Tannie, come away.”

  His voice was gentle, but it felt like a thousand needles under my skin.

  “Wylie’s gone.” Grief smothered my words.

  I felt as if I was floating over my body. I might as well be standing in the blackness with silvery memories fleeing my mind for all the reality I could grasp.

  “Tanwen, look at me.”

  I turned and met Mor’s blue eyes. “Wylie’s dead,” I choked.

  “I know, Tannie. Come away with me.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “I know. Come this way now.”

  The water lapped at our legs, and I knew our situation was precarious. Life-or-death. Probably death. But I couldn’t seem to shake myself from my haze.

  “Mor!” Warmil shouted. “Both boats are loaded and pulling for shore, but I can’t find Aeron.”

  “Can she swim?” I tried to focus on this new concern.

  “I don’t know.” Warmil’s agitation clipped his words.

  “We’ll look for her,” Mor said. “And then we’ll get as far as we can from these killing strands. We’ll have to swim hard, or the ship will pull us under when she sinks.”

  The Cethorelle was mostly underwater now. It seemed only the three of us were left.

  “Aeron?” Without thinking about it, I sent a strand of sunlight to obliterate a strand of darkness careening toward Warmil. “Aeron?”

  Then I saw her hand—pale, fine fingers clinging to what was left of the railing of the ship as she went under.

  “She’s there!” I pointed.

  We all splashed toward her.

  Scraps of thought raced through my mind.

  They won’t kill her. They didn’t kill me. We just have to get to her. Destroy the strands. Pull her aboard. Swim for shore.

  We reached the railing, and I finally saw what had been constraining her.

  One hand clung to the rail, but the other was gripping the hand of an unconscious crewman—one of the older sailors, Halen Bo-Tadau. He was bleeding from the head, and Aeron was barely keeping him above water. It seemed Halen was tugged by the pull of the sea alone, but a strand of night was wrapped around Aeron’s ankle. Her scabbard was empty, sword gone, and burns and welt
s covered her body.

  I shot sunlight her way and freed her ankle. But before Warmil could pull her back over, two more strands snaked from the water. She cried out as they snapped onto her wrists and yanked her into the sea.

  My heart froze.

  Not Aeron too.

  Warmil dove in after her. I tried to shoot sunlight into the water, but it weakened before it reached the night ribbons around Aeron’s wrists.

  Warmil resurfaced, then was pulled under.

  “They’re both going to drown,” I shouted to Mor.

  He looked at me briefly. “Be ready.”

  Then he dove in after them.

  I rested my head against the ship’s damaged rail. My thoughts went dark for several moments. I couldn’t seem to think or feel or do anything.

  But Mor had said to be ready.

  I forced myself up off the rail and watched the churning water. A patch of sea some distance away began to bubble as though a spring were working its way to the surface from the bottom of the Menfor. A moment later, a stream of water strands burst from the ocean, carrying Warmil and Halen.

  Warmil’s colormastery might be of no use against the sorcery strands, but this he could do. He gripped Halen around his chest with one arm and created water strands with his other hand. This kept them both afloat for now, but how long could Warmil possibly keep that up? Long enough to get to shore?

  And where were Aeron and Mor?

  I stared at the glassy patch of water where they should be. At the moment it seemed they would never resurface, Aeron’s upper body broke through the waves. Her eyes popped wide as she sucked in great gulps of air. And then I saw Mor’s hands holding her up as she fought to get her tethered left wrist above the surface. Her muscles rippled, and she screamed.

  I realized what I needed to do.

  Just as her wrist broke the surface, I shot a beam of sunlight toward it. The beam hit the night ribbon that twisted around her. The ribbon popped, and that arm was free. Then Aeron disappeared back under the surface. Mor came up a moment later, gulped air, and disappeared again.

  This time, I knew what to watch for.

  Aeron resurfaced. As soon as her other wrist appeared above the water, I sent sunlight toward it, snapping her free.

  I could only pray more of this sorcery wouldn’t find us.

  The sea swallowed my legs as Aeron and Mor swam toward me. There was no time to waste. We had to swim away from the pull of the ship, toward the shore. Swim for Kanac and the last hope of the cure. Away from these evil, twisted strands before they pulled us down to the bottom of the ocean.

  Down to where Wylie lay.

  One stroke to the next. Hand over hand. Swim for the beach.

  I blocked out all other thoughts.

  An eternity stretched before me.

  My lungs were ready to burst, and then sand was beneath my feet. But I couldn’t make it all the way to the shore. I stumbled to my knees in the shallow surf.

  Aeron’s screams crested over the roar of blood in my ears. She was hurt. I heard Warmil’s panic and a great commotion. More screaming from Aeron. But I just stayed there in the water, watching my fingers sink into the sand.

  Mor appeared beside me. He stumbled to his feet, then scooped me up, out of the water and onto the beach. We both collapsed, coughing and sputtering salt water on each other.

  I rolled onto my back, gasping in great breaths and trying to remind myself I was alive.

  Though I barely felt it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  TANWEN

  Mor touched my hand.

  But I couldn’t move. Every ounce of me was spent. “Mor?”

  “Yes, Tannie?”

  “Wylie is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Did everyone else make it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “Turn on your side. Face me.”

  I did, with effort.

  He met my gaze. “You’re alive, Tannie.”

  “Wylie is gone.”

  “Yes.”

  I heard screams again. Aeron was the toughest woman I’d ever met, and she screamed to pull the stars from the sky. What had those strands done to her?

  Father’s face came into my line of vision. Then his hand was rubbing my back. “We can go rest now, Tannie. Are you hurt?”

  Everything hurt, but I couldn’t tell if I was injured.

  My father and Mor pulled me up. Jule’s red hair registered in my mind at some point. He must have been there too. But the next thing I knew was a palm-leaf roof over my head, a woven mat under my aching body, and the deep sleep of utter exhaustion.

  I woke. It must have been an entire day later, for the sunlight seemed that of early morning. Had I slept that long? My rumbling stomach said yes.

  I could hear Mor and Jule talking outside about a new ship from the queen’s navy. Jule would see to the preparations, but there were many docked here. Dylun had the good sense to grab Braith’s letters along with his papers.

  Instinctively, I reached for my mother’s necklace. It was the only thing I owned that I truly cared about, and it was still there.

  Was anyone hurt? Did everyone else make it? What happened to Aeron?

  I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t find my voice.

  The scent of fish broth preceded the arrival of a plump Kanaci woman. She stared at me and clucked her tongue. I must look awful.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Aye.” My voice came out raspier than Father’s after thirteen years talking to rope-tails.

  “Stay,” she ordered as I tried to sit up. “I’m Narwat.”

  “Tanwen.”

  “You are sick.”

  Yes. I supposed that was true. Everything seemed so distant.

  “We need the final strand,” I remembered aloud.

  “Strand. Ya.” She spooned broth into my mouth.

  It wasn’t half bad. For fish broth.

  But the thought of how much I hated fish only made me think of Wylie.

  “Why are you crying?” Narwat asked.

  “A friend is dead.” Tears trickled down my face.

  “Your friends are outside. The injured one is alive.”

  I didn’t bother explaining. Didn’t have the strength. But Aeron was alive, and for that, I was grateful.

  “Wounds heal,” Narwat said.

  I looked dully at her gray-streaked black hair, pulled into two braids and crisscrossed over the top of her head. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and little wrinkles showed around her mouth. She had lived a lot more life than I had. Maybe she was right.

  “Do we have to get the strand today?” I struggled to get up.

  “No,” she said. “You sleep. I will feed you. The strand waits.”

  She seemed to know what she was talking about, so I obeyed her. For the next three days, I let her spoon broth into my mouth, wrap bandages around my scrapes, and tell me stories about the Spice Islands between occasional visits from my friends.

  “Narwat, why aren’t you a storyteller?” I said with a laugh. “I want to see these tales in crystal.”

  “You speak nonsense.”

  I smiled, but the next moment, I froze. Mor, Warmil, and two Kanaci men walked into the hut carrying a litter. At first, I thought it must be Gryfelle’s, but then my heart dropped. Black hair fell across the face of the woman on the litter.

  Aeron.

  I sat up on my mat. “Aeron?”

  She didn’t stir.

  I looked up at Mor. “Is she all right? I thought she was going to be all right.”

  He glanced at Warmil, then shook his head.

  “They did their best, but there was too much damage,” Warmil said tonelessly. “They took her left leg below the knee last night.”

  “Cethor’s tears.” I stared at him, then turned to Aeron, still motionless on the litter as Narwat prepared a second mat on the other side of the hut. “Will she wake?”

/>   “She’s been given a sleeping draught,” Mor answered as they lowered Aeron down to the mat. “She lost a lot of blood.”

  Warmil brushed Aeron’s hair from her forehead. “Best thing for her would be to get back to the queen’s infirmary in Urian.”

  “Karlith and War did what they could with their skills, and the physicians in town had good tools, at least.” Mor nodded to the Kanaci men exiting the hut. “But we should get her home as quickly as possible.”

  “Then we need to get the final strand.” I rose to my feet.

  I was suddenly aware of the short, colorful piece of fabric tied around me like a dress. My face flamed. All the Kanaci women wore them, and Narwat had put it on me days ago. It hadn’t occurred to me to be embarrassed in front of the others until I stood.

  Narwat didn’t flinch. “Tir clothes are here.”

  She grabbed my trousers, blouse, grazer-hide vest, and boots. She had laundered the trousers and blouse and tied everything into a neat bundle.

  She shook her head as she handed the bundle to me. “So heavy, these. Tir clothes are not good for Kanac.”

  “I’ll take them, just the same,” I said, clutching the bundle close.

  “We’ll wait outside,” Mor said. Then he put his hand on Warmil’s arm. “War? Let’s go outside, mate.”

  Warmil kept his gaze fixed on Aeron. “I should have saved her.”

  “You did.” Mor pulled him gently toward the doorway. “You did save her.” He glanced at me as they left. “Meet you outside, Tannie.”

  I tried to dress quickly, but I hadn’t been off my mat for nearly four days. I stumbled, unsteady on my feet.

  Narwat tsked. “You slow down. Be still. Don’t need you falling over.”

  That was true enough.

  I took my time, dressing as slowly as I dared. I sat to yank on my heavy boots. Narwat was right—these clothes were ill suited to the island, but it didn’t matter. This was our last stop. We would be back on another ship as soon as possible, then home to Tir. Just as soon as we extracted that final strand.

  I secured my braid with a piece of twine Narwat handed to me. She tucked a sunset-pink flower behind my ear. “Pretty.”

  I rather doubted it, but I suddenly felt the urge to kiss her cheek. “Thank you. Please take care of Aeron.”