Born of Water: Elemental Magic & Epic Fantasy Adventure

by Autumn M. Birt

Chapter 13

  ASSESSING THE DAMAGE

  “Ria, what’s wrong?” The numbness of sleep left Ty.

  Ria stood in the pale morning light that filtered through the cabin portholes. She hesitated between the door to the aft cabin she shared with Lavinia and the bench at the table.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake Vin.” Ria’s lip trembled. Ty shifted on the Captain’s bench where he slept near the foot of the stairs to the deck, pulling his blankets aside to make room for her.

  “It’s all right. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Ria’s eyes welled with tears. “It’s just ... I didn’t know. I didn’t really believe the Curse was real,” she said, voice thick with distress.

  “It’s all right. I don’t think any of us really believed it.”

  “But I nearly got you killed!”

  “Niri pulled me out of the way. Look Ria, I’m fine.” Ty wrapped an arm and his blanket around her, now that she had flopped down by his side.

  “Yah, Niri,” Ria said sullenly.

  Ty was silent a moment. “You are the one who saved my parents’ ship from the storm. A storm that Niri caused. No matter what came after, you saved many lives.”

  Tears overran Ria’s cheeks as she rested her head against Ty’s shoulders. There were no sobs, which surprised him. Only a few moments of silent tears. With his words of comfort to Ria, the nameless unease that had hatched to life the night before began to writhe and grow in his brain.

  They had sailed the damaged boat, heading further northeast, as the flames the Curse sent skyward became more and more distant. Niri’s concentration was on fighting the Curse until the darkest hours of the night.

  “Is it dead?” Ria asked. She still trembled, although the fight had been an hour before. If he hadn't needed to sail, Ty would have held her.

  “No.” Niri answered, voice hoarse from hours of disuse. “I don’t think I could kill it. But it is tired and has stopped fighting for now. It sleeps held by water at the bottom of the channel.”

  Niri ran a slow hand through her snarled hair, watching the shaking in her fingers as if they belonged to another person. Ty’s gaze fought between Ria and Niri, not winning for long with either.

  With dawn and a sheltered anchorage, sleep made more sense than assessing the damage to the Grey Dawn. The undefined unease crawling across Ty’s back faded as his mind blanked to unconsciousness. Now it was awake again and growing.

  Ria spoke angrily through her tears. “I don’t understand this cursed ‘gift’! In Sardinia, at the market, I wanted to rip Causis to pieces for hurting me. I could feel it, the same power I felt when I moved the ship last night, but ... it just evaporated when I tried to use it. Why can’t I protect myself?”

  Ty brushed the golden hair away from Ria’s face. The silken curls were as delicate as a spider’s web.

  “Maybe it is intent? You saved our parents but you wanted to hurt Causis.”

  “Great, so it would have worked if I’d just wished him to the middle of the sea?”

  “Maybe ... or you could have tried changing him into a rat,” Ty teased.

  “I’m serious, Ty.”

  Ria’s momentary fury died, tension fading into new tears as she relaxed against him. He held her as she whispered how much she hated this power she had, how she had feared it and the Church all her life, and how she just wanted to go home.

  “We could sail in the bay around Mirocyne. Remember when you used to take Lavinia and me out fishing, only we’d throw back everything you caught when you weren’t looking?”

  Ty chuckled, “I could never get the two of you to fish. All you did was drive me crazy.”

  “So you flipped the skiff and made us swim to shore.”

  There was the ghost of a smile on Ria’s face as she finally fell asleep in his arms. Ty drifted off moments later, his gaze still on her.

  —

  Ty thought he was the first awake. Next to him, Ria slept still curled in his blankets. He heard a splash while on the stairs and came up into the afternoon air just as Niri surfaced, like she was kin to a dolphin.

  “How’s the water?”

  Niri paused, hair spiraling out around her in the water. The afternoon sun glinted on the shallow waves lapping the boat. Beyond the small island and a half-submerged circle of boulders that Ty had found to shelter their little boat at dawn, the Archipelago spread out to the west, now only silhouettes of islands in the bright afternoon sun. To the north and east the waters of the Ocean of Ilaiya stretched in empty flatness. No other ship or town was in sight.

  “Warm, nice. You should try it sometime.” Niri said, tone teasing. “You know, for a sailor, water seems to make you nervous.”

  His unintentional smile froze. For a second he was back in the dim cabin and could feel Ria trembling under his fingers as she cried. “I have good reason,” he snipped.

  Niri frowned at his short answer. “Let me guess, you are a sailor who hates sailing?”

  He snorted. “It is often nothing but work ... except for a few times recently.”

  Their gazes locked, Ty inadvertently remembering the night Niri had pushed the waves and current just so. The boat had glided through the water much as Niri swam now. They both looked away, Ty’s cheeks warming. Niri’s color was high as well.

  “So, you like sailing at night in gale force winds while trying to escape angry sea creatures?”

  Ty barked a laugh. “You forgot the broken mast and shredded sail.”

  “Right, but were we technically sailing then? I mean, it seemed more like guided drifting.”

  Ty laughed. He kicked water at Niri from where he sat, his foot dangling over the edge of the boat. It showered her in a warm spray.

  Niri laughed. “You can’t upset naiads by splashing them, you know.”

  Ty rolled his eyes. “Right. Next time I’ll throw a handful of dirt.”

  Niri stuck out her tongue and dove under. She came up next to the boat a few feet down from where he sat. Her hands caressed the cracked wood.

  “I don’t think we can do much about this for now.”

  Ty shook his head. “No, but we can work on the mast and get the boom down at least.”

  Niri accepted his outstretched arm. With one foot against the hull of the boat, Ty levered her up onto the deck. Just as after the escape from Sardinia, Niri and Ty stood eye to eye. His laughter died and he stepped back, letting her go.

  Ty turned away as she stepped down to the deck, but the water sliding from her hair, dress, and skin as she used her power caught his attention. A moment later Niri was completely dry, the wind toying with her hair.

  “Can you do that in reverse?” Ty asked. “I should have soaked some leather for the mast before we went to sleep. I wasn’t thinking. Can you do it?”

  She held out her hand without a word, amusement in her glance. Ty gave her the stiff leather he had brought on deck. Niri leaned over the side of the boat, trailing the leather in the water for less than a minute. But when she pulled it up, the softened mass dribbled water like an oversaturated sponge.

  Ty shook his head as he took the sodden mess from her and carried it over to the mast, wrapping the shredded break with the leather. Fortunately, the crack had not been all the way through. Fibers still knit the sections of the mast together, but it leaned to starboard at a steep angle. When he was done, Ty asked Niri, “Can you dry it now?”

  Niri reversed the process, the water wringing from the leather by invisible force. It ran down the mast in a sheet. The leather tightened as it dried, shrinking until it encased the break. Ty felt the binding.

  “That should have taken days, not minutes.”

  Niri shrugged. “Obviously you weren’t doing it right before.”

  Ty choked on his laugh. “Obviously! So what can you do about the boom, then?” he challenged.

  Niri looked up at the dangling wood wrapped firmly out of reach in the rigging. She let out a breath. “I
think you need a dryad for that, I’m afraid.”

  “You admit defeat?”

  “Why is Niri defeated? The Curse isn’t loose again, is it?” Ria asked from where she'd stopped at the cabin door. Her confused voice rose with panic.

  “No, Ria, I was just teasing her,” Ty said as Ria slipped against his side.

  Niri reassured her, “The Curse is asleep in the crossing. It can’t harm you. It doesn’t know where you are.”

  Ria trembled against his side despite Niri’s comforting words.

  “How do you know?” Lavinia asked as she came up from the cabin as well.

  “I have a water spirit watching it. I called it into being before we slept last night ... this morning, I mean.”

  “So you would know if it came after us again?” Ty asked, Ria remaining tucked under his arm.

  “Yes.” Niri’s tone tinged with impatience. “I still have it wrapped in dense water bonds. It isn’t even struggling.”

  Ty realized he hadn’t noticed that Niri’s eyes were overcast with a lavender-blue tint. In the daylight it was harder to see the one physical sign of an Elemental using their skills. Plus, she'd been helping him with the mast. He hadn't thought about it. He hadn't asked.

  “So what are we going to do to get the boom?” Lavinia asked with her chin craned skyward, one hand shielding her eyes.

  “I think there is enough rope left that I could haul you up to free it,” Ty suggested, pushing aside his thoughts.

  “Like when we were children and used to play in the rigging?” Lavinia replied with a grin.

  “Exactly.”

  It took the siblings a few minutes to find rope enough to make a harness for Lavinia. Ty attached the jib line to it and hauled his sister into the air over the boat. She walked up the mast as he pulled the rope, pushing herself nimbly away to catch the rigging near the tangled boom.

  “Don’t get yourself caught,” Ty shouted up at her.

  “You worry too much. I know what I’m doing.”

  Ty sighed at his sister’s answer. “She used to be so obedient.”

  Niri chuckled. Ria flashed Niri, then Ty, a glance.

  “Watch out below!” Lavinia called before dropping a bundle of rope onto the deck. Ria jumped. “Sorry, Ria.” Ria sat down on the back bench, pale and nervous. Not that Ty could blame her. But with his sister in the air, there was little he could do for Ria.

  Lavinia sent down more rope before she managed to free the main line from the shredded sail. She attached one end to the boom while Ty secured the rope to a cleat. Carefully, Lavinia untied the last of the rigging wrapped around the boom. As she held onto the free end, Ty slowly lowered his sister and half the boom to the deck, one foot against the mast to give himself support from the weight on the rope. Back on deck, Lavinia helped her brother lower the other end.

  Everyone stared at it. Tangled in what remained of the sail, the boom stretched the length of the boat.

  “Should we reattach it? The hardware still looks solid,” Lavinia asked, tone doubtful despite her optimistic wording. She attempted to sort out the damaged sail, eyeing the pieces and stitching. “The sail isn’t too bad. I think I can mend it.”

  Niri choked.

  “No really,” Lavinia said, breathing a laugh. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “I’m starting to wonder exactly what sort of upbringing the two of you had.”

  A ghost of a smile passed over Ty’s lips as Lavinia chirped, “The best sort!”

  “Ignore her, she has always been the more natural of the two of us at sailing. She doesn’t seem to realize it is work for everyone else.” Lavinia blushed at the unexpected compliment from her brother.

  Serious again, Ty ran his hand through his hair, evaluating the boat. The mast was secured but damaged as it canted slightly off-center and without the support of any rigging. Bits of shredded sail flapped in the afternoon breeze. The deck was a mess of broken lines.

  “Well, we can’t cross to the Southern Shore with the ship like this.” He was the first to say what he was sure everyone already knew. Ria looked away.

  “We won’t reattach the boom. Even with what we just bought, we don’t have enough rope to run new rigging. I don’t want to use the mainsail, even if there is enough left, unless we have full rigging. The mast can't take it. We’ll sail by the jib. We can lash the boom to the deck until we can get the ship fixed.”

  “Where do we go, then?” Lavinia asked.

  “We can head back to the Archipelago. There are boat builders on the docks of the larger towns. It will take some time, but we can have it fixed there.”

  Lavinia sat next to the boom with a thud. “And spend the last of the money we made in Sardinia.”

  Niri shook her head. “No," she said forcefully. “One day in a city like Tiero was fine. But we can’t stay for a week or more in the Archipelago. The towns are controlled by the Church. Most of the members of the High Council have houses there. We’ll be found.”

  Niri's statement met silence. Lavinia stared at the piece of rigging she was twirling in her fingers.

  “We could steal a new boat,” Ria suggested.

  Lavinia's attention jerked to Ria as she glared at her best friend. Ty spread his hands, breaking Lavinia’s gaze. She looked away across the sea and hissed, “No, we aren’t stealing another boat.”

  “Then where do we go?” Ria asked, a hostile tone to her voice. "We don't seem to have many options."

  The wind sighed across the deck.

  “I ... I might know of a place,” Niri said.

  “Where?” Lavinia asked, hopeful.

  “There is a place that the Church doesn’t go - is actually afraid to go. We can run north along the shore.”

  Ty hesitated, thinking of the route. It wasn't one he'd sailed during his apprenticeship, for good reason. “There isn’t much to the north. Rough towns, not friendly to outsiders. I don’t see how they would help.”

  “We need to go to the Forest of Falin, to Drufforth. The Kith live there. They are dryads and could fix the boat.”

  “You think they’ll help us? You being a member of the Church and all,” Ria said with a sidelong glance at Niri.

  “Ria, she saved your life, twice,” Lavinia shot back.

  “What other choice do we have? We’ll be safe from the Church. The Kith have the skills to help. We just need to convince them.”

  Ty ran his hand through his hair again in frustration. “It is the wrong way.”

  “You’d rather spend the last of our money and days hiding from Priests in the Archipelago?” Lavinia exclaimed.

  “How can we trust her?” Ria said, jumping to her feet. “She is a Priestess! How do we know the Kith aren’t something worse? If the Church keeps the Curse secret and uses it to kill people, what else is Niri not telling us?”

  “Ria, she warned us about the Curse in Mirocyne,” Lavinia answered. “It isn’t her fault we didn’t understand.”

  Ria and Lavinia glared at each other. Ria looked away first.

  “You want to know what the Church can do, Vin?” Ty asked, voice quivering with anger. The threads of anxiety and doubt itching at him since the night before burst into full bloom, Ria’s words and fear feeding his anger. “You want to know why I left my apprenticeship? Why I don’t like swimming anymore? It was because of one of her kind.” Ty slashed his hand in Niri’s direction.

  Niri took a step away from him. He ignored her. Ty’s hostility knocked out Ria’s, and she sat down again.

  Really, his attention was on his sister. The anger left her face, leaving it pale. Some of Ty’s acid anger faded. He spoke to her forgetting anyone else was on the boat.

  “It is why I came back to Mirocyne, Vin. I wanted to warn you before you left so you didn’t make the same mistake. I wanted you to know.

  I was on the Gypsy Empress. She is a larger ship than anything our parents have. Big enough that a Wind Elemental stayed on the boat.”

  Ty looked away from his sister
’s heartfelt stare. He cleared his throat. “Arkira was stunning, with short dark hair and light amber eyes. She knew everything about the ship, although she used her knowledge to order everyone around.” A faint smile warmed him, but quickly faded. “Even the captain did whatever she requested.

  There was another apprentice on the ship, too. Ryic was nearly finished with his two years. He was her favorite and he worked hard for it. He brought her anything she wanted: the best food, jewelry, anything that caught her eye. She ... Arkira began to make the gifts a competition between us. I don’t even know how it happened. She would bring us wine when we were left to sail at night, flirting with us and laughing when Ryic got jealous. Then next day we would try to outdo each other with something to please her.”

  Ty stared at the deck, his cheeks hot. “When Ryic left to be assistant captain on a smaller ship ... she would come on deck and give me wine until my head spun. Every night she would come and laugh, then slip away. I don’t think it took even two weeks until I was willing to steal things to win her attention.”

  “She used you, but that doesn’t mean ...”

  Sharp-voiced, Ty cut Lavinia off. “That isn’t the worst of it. If that was all, I could say I had a lesson learned, and move on.” Anger coursed through him again. Lavinia sat back, sullen.

  “We were in Portoreayl. It is a big port city in the Archipelago. I stole some choice wine from the captain’s stores for her. I took it to her room and only heard a second voice just before I knocked. I waited outside and listened, jealously trying to find out who was with her.

  It was Fistus, another Wind Elemental from a sister ship. I had seen him before - heavyset, older, balding. I knew he wasn’t there ... for the reason I thought. I stayed to hear them talk, hoping he would leave soon.

  Arkira was saying she was bored. Bored with ‘inexperienced boys’ was how she put it. Fistus laughed at her, asked how she had turned Ryic and what he had sent her. I could hear her haughty pride as she listed things Ryic had taken from his new ship’s stores or had stolen and taken as undocumented cargo for her. Fistus was impressed. Said something like ‘another ship’s captain who belongs to the Church.’ I think I realized then what she was doing.”

  Now Ty remembered Niri. He looked at her coldly. “She would win an apprentice over, infatuate him until he would do anything for her. Then she would use him for whatever she wanted. Steal goods, carry secret shipments, all for her use or for the Church.” Ty spat the word at Niri. He looked away from her.

  “I was standing outside Arkira’s chambers with a bottle of stolen wine in my hand and realizing how well she had played me.”

  “So you left. One bad Priestess ...”

  Ty cut Lavinia off again. “Stop making excuses for her. It is not one bad Priestess! I didn’t just leave then or ignore her like I should have from the beginning. I turned to go and then I heard Fistus say my name.”

  Ty trembled. He closed his hands to fists. “Fistus had asked how I was doing. Arkira sighed and said, ‘Fine.’ She expected I would ‘come around’ any day and then she would have to sleep with me, pretend to enjoy it. I wanted to hurl that bottle through the door at her. Do anything to stop that disgusted tone.

  Fistus laughed and offered to ‘take care of it’ for her, that night, in fact. Promised if I didn’t at least enjoy it, he’d make it something I could be blackmailed with. She could threaten to transfer me to his ship if I didn’t do what she wanted.”

  Ty’s face felt tight. He closed his eyes. “She agreed.”

  Lavinia was speechless, staring at her brother with tears in her eyes. Ty knelt in front of her and took her hand.

  “I left then, when I heard her agree, when I heard the excitement in Fistus’s voice as he asked where my chambers were below. I heard the scrape of his chair as he stood up. It made me move. I turned and went over the side of the ship with nothing. We were anchored ... far out.” Ty’s voice choked at the harrowing memory of the night swim.

  “I went between anchored boats, holding onto their anchor chains to rest. It was hard to find the shore between the ships in the dark. I couldn’t see the lights of the city. It felt ... like an eternity. It was dawn when I washed ashore nearly drowned. Those men you saw in Mirocyne found me in the market half dead and trying to filch something for breakfast. They took me in, gave me food and a place to stay. Stealing for them didn’t seem so bad at first, until they decided to rob Finneous and kill Jistin. I couldn’t do it so I left again, running from them as well as the Church.”

  “Ty, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me the day you came home?” Lavinia asked, heart in her eyes.

  He shook his head. “I just couldn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  Lavinia stared at the deck. Ty stood stiffly, aware again of Ria and Niri. He walked to stand next to Ria, who sat wide-eyed on the far bench. She took his hand.

  Ty said, “You see why we can’t trust her? It is better to risk the Church and the Archipelago than to go with her.” Niri looked away.

  “No!” Lavinia said, jumping to her feet. Ty looked at his sister in surprise. “Don’t you see? That is exactly why we can’t run to a place beholden to the Church! Niri is not Arkira. She saved our lives. We have to trust her. I say we go north.”

  Ty was stunned. After waiting so long to tell her, of not wanting to face what he'd done and only doing so to protect his sister and Ria, Ty had never expected his sister would reject him.

  "Vin," Ty whispered through a tight throat. "You can't mean that."

  Lavinia stood her ground. “We are going north, away from the Church, otherwise we might as well sail Ria and Niri to the Temple of Solaire ourselves.”

  The standoff between Ty and his sister was broken by a gull’s cry. Ty looked away first. He stared hard at the deck, black anger growing.

  “Fine, but when we reach Drufforth, Ria and I are leaving.”