“Shut your mouth, Timoth, or I’ll shove my cutlass through it.” Father usually calls the meeting to attention with a threat. Though nearly everyone had been talking, singling out one man is enough to quiet the entire room. Especially after Father’s display of power yesterday.
I try desperately to ignore the space Tylon occupies. I’m still mad as hell over his ambush yesterday. Arrogant piss pot. As if I’d ever want to associate with him. Tylon is only a few years older than I, and Father adores him (as much as a ruthless pirate can adore anything) because he obeys orders immediately and without question. He’s always quick to rat out other pirates at the keep for misconduct, which makes him unpopular with everyone else, but a star in my father’s eyes. His biggest flaw, however, is in assuming I will align myself with him. He seems to think I will want to share my birthright with him when Father steps down. That by entangling himself with me, he will become the next pirate king. I’ll dagger him in his sleep before that happens. I will become the pirate queen when Father retires, and I will not be sharing power.
“The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here,” my father says. He’s a large figure at the head of a massive oak table. He stands while the rest of us sit, lest we forget who’s in charge. As if he needs to. His sheer size is enough to leave anyone without a doubt as to his status. He keeps his hair and beard short always. Something about not letting it obstruct his line of vision. He once tried to cut my hair to make me a better pirate. I told him where he could stick his scissors, and he jabbed them into my leg instead.
My father certainly has raised me with unconventional methods; sometimes a molten rage surges up when I remember the past. But then I remember the here and now. No one can best me with a blade, save perhaps my father. No one can outdistance me. No one can outlast my stamina. Other pirates fear me. I am proud of all these facts. It is only because of my father that I have achieved them. On top of the skills he gave me are all the good memories I have of him. When he gave me my first sword. The time he stroked my hair and told me I looked like my mother. The jokes and laughter we share when we manage private moments together. These memories are spread out with lots of misery in between, but everyone both loves and resents their parents, don’t they?
You may try to rationalize it, Alosa. He’s your father. He’s only ever tried to make you strong. To make you a survivor. But do those sound like your own thoughts in your head? Or his thoughts bringing you back to him yet again?
I’m not rationalizing. I’m stating facts. Cold. Hard. Facts.
I am under no one’s control.
“Vordan’s map was the last of the three fragments, the final piece that leads us the rest of the way to the Isla de Canta,” Father says, bringing me out of my thoughts. “I’ve had years to examine the first map, the map that came from my own father and his father before him. It has traveled the Kalligan line for centuries, and we have kept it in pristine condition.
“The second map piece was brought to us by Captain Alosa Kalligan. Jeskor’s sons had it hidden on their ship, though they were too stupid to realize it.
“The third has come to us today, once again procured by Captain Alosa.”
The eyes in the room swivel to me. Many with jealousy—they wish to be so favored by the king.
“We will set sail in thirty days,” Father continues. “We will reach the Isla de Canta, and its treasure will be ours.”
“Rah!” cheer the pirates in the room.
“Captains, what is the status of your ships?”
“I’ve nigh twenty barrels of gunpowder on the Black Rage,” Captain Rasell says. “Fifty men await my instructions.”
Tylon goes next, and I do my best not to frown. “I have five harpoon guns attached to Death’s Secret and over a hundred individual harpoons that can be thrown from rowboats.”
“We’ll skewer the beasts!” Captain Adderan proclaims, and the room goes wild with excitement. For the first time, the thought of traveling to the island makes me sick.
He found something on that island where he met your mother. A weapon. A device that protects him from the sirens. A device that lets him control them.
It goes on like this as twenty pirate captains list their most valuable collections for the trip. The other thirty or so captains are all rushing to the keep to make it in time for the voyage, and some of them will end up staying behind anyway to defend our stronghold while the rest of us sail for treasure.
“Captain Alosa,” my father says expectantly.
I swallow my uneasiness and push the image of sirens being harpooned like whales from my mind, vowing that nothing will keep me from traveling to the island. This is too important. And Father has already had to remind me recently that they’re inhuman beasts. I know this. I’ve experienced for myself what happens when I’m submerged underwater.
“I have a crew consisting of twenty-eight women,” I say simply.
Adderan snorts. “Women. Good. The men will have company during the voyage.” A few others in the room dare to snicker at the comment.
The men may recognize my talents and purpose, even if they don’t like them. But other female pirates receive no such esteem.
Father doesn’t defend my crew. Nor would I want him to. I can do it all on my own.
The pirate captains and the dungeon master are the only ones who know about my abilities at the keep, so I don’t have to hide them in this room.
I sing a booming note, something that won’t go unnoticed by anyone in the vicinity. Adderan rises from his chair and runs face first into the nearest wall. The contact splits open a thin line on his head, but it doesn’t render him unconscious. I want him fully awake when I humiliate him.
“While the sirens enchant you all to take your own lives,” I say, “my talented female crew will be unaffected. We will be the ones who actually reach the treasure and make the journey back home.”
The room goes silent. Kalligan’s men need to remember these are no ordinary women defending the Isla de Canta.
“Very impressive, Captain Alosa,” Tylon says, and I jerk my head in his direction, “but there is a simple remedy to such a problem. I believe you experienced this one while you were Vordan’s prisoner.”
He pulls something from his pocket, breaks it in two, and molds it into his ears. Wax.
I turn to the man on Tylon’s right. “Captain Lormos, kindly prove a point for me and smack Tylon up the side of the head.”
Tylon must assume my moving mouth is expelling enchanting notes. He grins condescendingly at his invincibility. But then Lormos, who is especially prone to violence, says, “Gladly,” and carries out my request. No singing required.
Tylon grunts and turns to his right, cocking his fist back in retaliation. My father holds out his hands, a simple motion commanding all to stay their violence. Tylon grudgingly complies and pulls the wax from his ears.
“Song is not the only thing you have to worry about,” I say. “You will also be unable to communicate with one another, and the sirens can easily get the drop on you then.”