Dance of devils and dayl.., p.17
Dance of Devils and Daylight (Legion of Thieves Book 2), page 17
No. Freya blinked. I don’t want to go.
Wind whipped across the water, sending her hair into a frenzy. Her lungs felt thick and full of ice, her pants filling the air around her face until it began to glimmer and glisten. No longer were her breaths white and frosty. Now each breath glittered with darkness.
The sirens recoiled as if they’d been stung. Their smiles snapped into vicious snarls. One of them pulled its hand free of the boat and dived back into the water with a splash. Another screeched, relinquishing its grip to claw at its head. It slid down the ship’s side and dropped into the water. One by one they fell away, until there was only one left.
It bared its thorny teeth, amber eyes sparking with rage. “You call so sweetly,” it seethed. “But we do not answer to you.”
It lifted a hand, fingers curling into claws, and swiped the side of the ship. Once. Twice. Freya watched, unwelcome fear creeping over her, as four lines carved an X into the wood. The siren hung from the ship with one arm. The other lifted to point directly at Freya. “We will be back,” it spat. Its voice was like fingernails scratching out rust. “And we will claim our prize.”
Then it dived from the ship, crashing into the black waves below. Leaving Freya fighting the urge to follow.
…
The ship had suffered.
A lot. After the sirens had retreated and there was nothing but corpses left to stand over, the crew began tossing the slain sirens overboard.
They dragged the fallen crew into the center of the deck, using canvas salvaged from the sail repair supplies to wrap the bodies…holding what was left of them together. They worked until dawn cracked on the horizon, bringing with it a sense of comfort. Everyone was exhausted, yet no one paused, no one retired, until it came time to return those who had not survived to the sea.
“It seems cruel to toss them into the water with those beasts lurking somewhere,” Nyar said, grimacing as she helped to lift one of the bodies and lay it beside the railings.
“It is the way,” Devon said, his jade eyes never seeming to stray too far from Freya, who felt useless as she watched from the steps leading to the upper deck. Even Hetty was helping, binding the canvas around the bodies with lengths of rope.
Hex had insisted Freya rest her leg, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was a little too late to lay off it now. If she was going to be permanently injured, the damage had already been done.
Nyar eased the head of the body she was carrying onto the deck by the railings. “Where I come from, we burn our dead and let their ashes choose where to rest.”
“We live for the sea,” Devon countered. “We die on the sea. And so, to the sea we must be returned.”
Nyar scowled but didn’t object as she retreated to haul another body from the pile in the center of the deck.
When all the bodies had been wrapped and shifted, Connell eased a plank against the railing. Immediately the mood on deck shifted. The pirates paused for the first time since the attack, gathering around the edge of the deck where Connell stood.
Freya stood, sensing this was important, and came to stand beside Hex, who looked at the bodies of his crew with a pained expression. His jaw was tight, his brows furrowed. He rarely looked so serious…so guilty.
She was not bold enough to stand directly at his side, but some part of her didn’t feel as though he should have to stand alone. Regardless of how she felt about him, or about pirates, these men had been part of his crew. They were his responsibility, and she could see the strain their deaths had left him with. He laid a sword across the cloth, then stepped back to let the others lift the body above the railings.
Freya’s voice broke the silence, soft and high. “Deep in the currents, in Kingdoms of Coral, where maidens sing, and sailors soon follow.”
The Kingdoms of Coral was a melancholic pirate’s ballad, one she’d heard sung in the Ruts, by drunken sailors who did not care for the sting their pretty words left. It was simple enough to remember easily, and soft enough to sing without much practice.
She watched the bodies as she sang, not caring that no one joined in. In her peripheral vision, she saw Hex’s face turn to her.
Hetty’s voice lilted alongside Freya’s. Higher. Sweeter. “Do spare me your sorrow, for not seeing tomorrow. For I now reign in the Kingdoms of Coral.”
Connell hesitated, waiting for the end of the verse before tilting the plank so the body slid feet-first into the water. The distant splash was swallowed by the crash of waves against the hull, the ship gliding onwards. The bodies left behind. Connell reached down for the next body. His lips began to move, his voice rising to join Freya’s and Hetty’s.
“In the Kingdoms of Coral, there’s no sun and no shallows, no rocks to run me ashore. But I have my ship, and we’ll sail through the depths, and find a maiden to love me the more.”
Hex stepped forward, tucking a sword beneath the bindings of the second body. The plank tilted, the swath of canvas disappearing over the edge of the ship.
More voices joined in. Nyar’s. And then Devon’s. Several pirates Freya hadn’t learned the names or faces of.
“In the Kingdoms of Coral, where many will follow, we live in endless night. It’s perfect for drinking, for fighting and cheating. For living a pirate’s life.”
Hex’s voice lifted beside Freya, deep and quiet and full of gravel. She dared to glance at him. He looked back at her, the apple of his throat bobbing. Some sort of quiet appreciation shone in his gaze, backlit by pain. He broke away first, attention returning to the men who were being honoured, to lay down the next sword.
The rest of the crew joined in before the last verse came to rise, creating a symphony of voices that echoed across the deck and rang out into the sea.
“Deep in the currents in Kingdoms of Coral, where maidens sing, and sailors soon follow. Do spare me your trouble, for I have no quarrel, as I now reign in the Kingdoms of Coral.”
The last body was tipped into the water. Those who had survived uninjured stood against the railing, watching their mates bob in the ship’s wake. Saying their final goodbyes.
Connell turned away first. His pant leg was torn, revealing the result of a talon he’d failed to dodge. Blood stained the fabric down to his ankle. At some point he’d run a hand over his tanned forehead. Blood stained that, too. His hair had long since come undone, and now hung in dark, damp curls around his face. He walked away from the railing without so much as a limp. They were strong, these pirates.
Stronger than Freya gave them credit for.
She’d seen Hex fight in Orlenea, despite having his chest lacerated. Connell moved freely despite the muscle of his thigh showing beneath split flesh. Nyar looked unscathed, but there was tension in her body. Her fingers were curled around blades she seemed unwilling to sheath. Devon carried his silver-tongued whip, which now hung in two pieces.
As the bodies faded from sight, everyone returned to their stations. A ship would not sail itself, and there was so much work yet to be done. The fallen torch had burned a small hole in the middle of the deck, the charred wood crumbling away to reveal the hold below.
Hex began ordering men to cut the damage away and build a grate that could lay over top. Other men were instructed to check for damage on the ship’s sides, on her hull.
For a long moment, Freya felt useless. Like she should be doing something – helping somehow – working with the crew. She glanced at the captain’s quarters, and the bloody that stained the floor. Shards of glass lay in the sticky, half-dried fluid. More glittered on the cushions of the bay where she had been sleeping. Wind whistled through the jagged hole in the window, shaking the dregs of tissue that hung there like leaves.
Freya caught the attention of a deckhand, a young boy who couldn’t be any older than twelve. She was surprised to see someone so young aboard the ship, having never noticed him before. Beneath smears of dirt and coal dust, his olive skin was pale. A cloth cap covered his brown hair. There was blood on his bare feet.
“Where might I find a bucket and a mop?” she asked him.
He pointed to the hatch that led to the hold. “Down there, m’lady.”
She limped over, the bandage around her knee still thick and obtrusive. She wondered if it was the reason why she still felt no pain in her leg. She was tempted to remove it, just to find out.
A foot kicked the hatch, slamming it shut before she could reach it. She looked up to find Nyar standing before her, wearing her trademark scowl.
Freya sighed. “I need to go down there.”
“You need to be off your feet,” Nyar said, her dark eyes flicking to Freya’s knee.
She hadn’t expected Nyar to care about her injury, not after their last conversation. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she explained. “And I won’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“Just because it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean its not broken.” But she looked around, a breeze ruffling her dark hair. Everywhere people were moving. Lifting, carrying, cleaning. When she turned back to Freya, her face had lost some of its contempt. “What do you need?”
“What?”
Nyar’s boot tapped the hatch. “From down there.”
Freya’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “A bucket. And a mop.”
Nyar stooped to lift the hatch, then ducked inside. “I’ll help you,” she said, her tone a cold contrast to her words. She vanished into the hold, reappearing a few minutes later with a wooden pail and a boar-hair broom. “No mop,” she said by way of explanation, handing the tools up to Freya.
They worked in deft silence to clean the quarters, sweeping glass into the bucket and plucking scales and tissue from the window. The cushions in the bay were ruined. Nyar didn’t waste time on trying to salvage them. She tossed them into the barrels of coal, letting smoke curl around the cotton.
The day was bleak, the sky more gray than blue. A cool wind whistled through the broken window, chilling the room and turning the air salty. Freya’s fingers absorbed the cold.
Hetty stood at the door, red hair brushing her shoulders. Her blue eyes flitted between Nyar and Freya, bright despite the direness of the night. “Need some help?” she asked.
Nyar huffed into her hands, rubbing her palms together. She muttered something about finding wood to board the window and slipped back onto the deck.
Hetty watched her leave, then held up a rag and a pail of water.
Freya quirked an eyebrow. “I hope she didn’t try smother you in your sleep,” she teased.
Hetty entered the quarters and set down the pail. “Actually, she was rather pleasant.”
Freya shook out the blanket, wafting a faint scent of cloves into the air, and folded it against her chest. That, at least, had escaped ruin. “I’m surprised. When I had to share a room with Nyar, she spent most of her time whittling sticks into spears.”
Hetty smiled as she scrubbed blood from the floorboards. “I would assume that would have something to do with you teasing out her temper.”
“A fair thing to do, given she tried to kill me in Orlenea.” Freya gave her a pointed look, reminding Hetty of her warnings at dinner the night before. Hetty only shrugged again.
“That was all bravado,” came a masculine voice. Hex lingered in the doorway, a mallet held in one hand. “She wouldn’t have really killed you.”
Freya raised an eyebrow in challenge. “No? She just pretended to order Devon to stab me in the heart, then?”
She held Hex’s gaze, feeling anger swell within her again. His presence seemed to bring out the worst in her, and she wondered how long she would feel the sting of his betrayal. Likely forever.
Hex broke away first. Again. His gaze flitted to the rag Hetty was wringing, then to the broken window. It wasn’t like him to back down from her, and part of her wished he wouldn’t, if only so they could argue. She wanted to fight, to scream at him until the tension left her body, and there was nothing left to say. If they had any hope of working together, it needed to happen.
“You fought well tonight,” he said. “If it weren’t for you, we might all have fallen prey to those salty beasts.”
Freya watched him carefully. The tightness in his eyes. The swell of his knuckles as his fingers curled around a clutch of iron nails. Something was off. She suspected it had to do with what the siren had done to him, and fought the strangest urge to pull him aside, or order the room to be cleared, save for the two of them, so that she might speak with him privately. So that she might ask him what happened…what he saw in those ruby eyes.
“All I did was scream,” Freya pointed out.
He still didn’t look at her. “And as we have all learned, a scream is a rather powerful way to draw attention to things gone wrong.”
She watched him force a smile. Though his tone was light, his eyes were not. She chose her next words carefully. “I suppose you were awfully lucky that I was able to behead that siren for you.”
A muscle feathered in his jaw. His eyes shifted, focusing on the nails he held. “Indeed. I owe you great thanks.”
Shame, Freya realized. That was what weighed on him so heavily. Not just guilt, or loss. She fought the urge to catch his eye, to tease out his usual charm and arrogance with sharp words and practiced glares. But she couldn’t muster the strength. Not when he looked so…defeated. Though he often responded to her attitude, laying it on him now just felt cruel.
Twenty-Six
Everyone gathered below decks, hiding from the bitter cold that had come with the day. The farther north they sailed, the colder the days grew.
The sirens had done their best to reap havoc on the ship as well as its crew. Cannon ports had been ripped open, and several splinters made below the waterline. Any scraps of wood onboard had been used to patch the damage below deck. The captain’s quarters, sitting high above the waves, had become the lowest priority, the window left open and exposed to the elements. That meant Freya could no longer sleep there, which was fine by her. Though she was now here of her own volition, the quarters reminded her of Barossa, and her time spent captive on this ship.
After a heated discussion with the ship’s doctor, she’d won her case about being able to use her leg, and awkwardly climbed down into the hold. Now she sat on one of the stools, sharing a table with Hetty.
More coals had been stoked, lending much needed warmth to the damp space. Conversation hummed through the hold, which seemed a lot smaller now that it was filled with the crew. Tangling with the stench of body odor and unwashed clothes was the sweet smell of stew.
At the end of the hold, the cook stirred a huge cast iron pot.
Freya pulled up the leg of her pants, exposing the bandage wrapped around her knee. It was discolored, speckled with blood that had soaked through her pants.
Hetty leaned over to look, catching her lip between her teeth. “Are you sure this is a good idea? What if you end up crippled?” she hissed.
Freya gave her a flat look. “I’ve been running around on it for hours. If I were going to be crippled, I think I would have felt it by now.”
She began to unwind the bandage, peeling back layer after layer until it fell away from her knee completely. She sucked in a small gasp. Across the table, she heard Hetty do the same.
“What in the mother’s milk is that?” Hetty asked.
Freya stared at her knee. The swelling was gone, as was the pain. But a web of black lay beneath her skin, stretching below and above her knee like spindly branches.
“Is that…” Her voice was an octave too high. “Is that magic?”
Freya gingerly bent her leg, testing the joint, expecting to feel something ugly. Her knee bent smoothly, without a crack of pain. She poked a finger into her kneecap. It slid smoothly beneath her skin, no trace of any break.
“I think so,” she whispered. She couldn’t quite bring herself to smile. Some part of her flared with panic. She remembered her dream, the black veins that had crawled up Kila’s arms. What did this mean? What was it doing to her?
Someone moved by their table. Freya scrambled to pull her pant leg back over her knee, her heart thudding at the idea of someone seeing...whatever that was.
She looked up, startled.
A young man with blond hair smiled back at her. There was a gash on his forehead, held together by two crude stitches. He looked vaguely familiar as he gestured to the third stool with his free hand. The other carried a bowl of the stew Freya had smelled cooking. “May I?”
Freya’s eyes narrowed but she nodded. It took her a while to place him. She had met him the first night she’d been on the Emporia, back in Orlenea when she’d been emptying the chamber pot. A flush of embarrassment crept across her face. She hadn’t learned his name, but she was sure he would remember hers.
He winced when he sat, his free arm wrapped around his stomach protectively.
Freya’s suspicion eased. “You were the one who got knocked from the mast yesterday.”
The young man grinned sharply, his brown eyes glittering with good nature. “Yup, that was me. I suppose that makes this the cripples’ table.” His smile slipped a little as he noticed Hetty staring at him. “Er, sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything, m’lady.”
His use of ‘m’lady’ did little to soften Hetty. “Is there something we can help you with…?”
“Davie,” he offered quickly, his grin returning. “I thought I’d introduce myself, seeming the rest of the crew seem a little…apprehensive.”
Freya felt a smile tug at her lips. Indeed, the rest of the crew had filled all the seats bar the ones at the table she shared with Hetty. Conversation at the closest tables was low and serious, and Freya had already met several suspicious sets of eyes. She wasn’t sure if they’d harbored this feeling of unrest towards them before the sirens had attacked, but part of her wondered if they knew. If they could sense the sirens had come for her, and that there was a very good chance they would return.
