“Do you want some help with that?” I ask, pointing to the shirt.
“If you won’t leave, then I will.” He tries to stand; at least I think that’s what he’s doing. His legs are twitching.
I rush forward and push against the idiot’s shoulders. “What are you doing?”
He bats at my arms with flimsy pressure and tries to stand again.
“Keep your arse on my floor,” I say.
“Why don’t you make me?” he snaps. “You’ve already broken your promise today. What’s once more?”
My mouth drops open. “Is that what this is about?”
He still won’t look at me.
“Would you really have preferred that I let you drown?”
“I gave you my conditions for joining your crew. Under no circumstances were you to use your abilities on me.”
“You were going to die!”
He snaps his neck in my direction, his eyes finding mine instantly. “Then you should have let me. I practically killed myself trying to obey you. I can barely lift my arms, and forget about my legs. I feel as though I’ve been swimming for years nonstop. Not because I was fighting for my life, but because I was trying to heed the order of a siren.”
“You’re being a prick. I did nothing wrong.”
He mumbles something under his breath. I almost don’t call him out on it, but if he’s going to insult me, he better have the balls to do it to my face.
“What was that?” I ask.
“You were just like him.”
My mind blanks. Him? “Who?”
“Jeskor,” he breathes so faintly I almost miss it. His eyes take on a faraway look, reflecting on some former time. Some demon of his past, I realize.
I know all too well what it is like being raised by a pirate. But I don’t know fully what life was like for Riden growing up. What did his father do to him?
“What happened?” I ask.
His eyes narrow on me again. “I want to be alone.”
“Fine,” I snap. I throw the large feather blanket from my bed on top of his head. Maybe he’s too weak to adjust it and he’ll suffocate, but that’s probably too much to hope for.
I leave before I can fantasize more about strangling him.
How dare he scare me to death and then try to guilt me for it! I should dump his arse back into the sea.
“Kearan, go below and tell Mandsy she should stay with Riden if Roslyn checks out all right. Then get some rest. I’ll take the helm for a while.”
He opens his mouth.
“If you’re about to argue with me, I suggest you don’t.”
Something about my tone makes him go through the hatch without another moment’s hesitation.
*
Two hours pass. The hazy light of dawn finally peeks over the horizon, casting a little light for us to see by. Kearan is taking another turn at the helm while I rest my arms from the battle with the sea. The ship constantly has to be turned into the waves to keep it from capsizing. It’s as if the storm is a manifestation of my father’s wrath.
A brutal gust of wind strikes the ship, and a crack slices the air. I assume it’s more thunder until I feel the ship start to tip. I can do nothing but watch as the mainmast snaps just below the second sail. It falls against the side of the ship, slicing through the railing and putting a hole through the deck. It’s held together by mere fragments of wood and a few lines of rope.
I run for the trapdoor, open it, and scream, “Niridia, get the crew up here! Now! Before the tension drags us under!”
There’s a blur of movement as the crew spills onto the deck, carrying knives and axes. They slice the ropes and hack at the wood weighing us down. Radita directs them so the task can be done in the most efficient way possible.
The broken mast falls into the sea, and the ship sways far to the opposite side. We swing back and forth until the ship rights itself.
Just as slowly as the storm came upon us, now it recedes. The sea rests and the clouds retreat. The sun climbs higher toward its perch in the sky.
Radita lets the crew breathe for a moment before instructing them in cleaning the wreckage. Clumps of sea plants are tangled in the railing. Loose ropes lie everywhere. Wood fragments litter the deck. Radita tells them which pieces of the ship to save and which to toss over the side. Some of the girls start rebuilding the parts of the railing and deck that were lost.
The mizzenmast and foremast still stand, but the rigging hangs limply to the deck, blowing about in calmer winds. The mainmast floats in the water a ways off, and a few girls take the rowboats to try and salvage the sails and crow’s nest.
Only then does our new predicament fully hit me.
A sequence of expletives leaves my mouth as I take in the carnage. I don’t even feel guilty when Roslyn turns to Niridia to ask what one of the words means.
The ship barely crawls along without the mainmast. We can’t unfurl the sail on the foremast yet because the rigging needs fixing. The lateen on the mizzen doesn’t do much to push the ship forward. The pirate king will have no trouble catching up to us now.
I can’t seem to stop looking at the missing mast. My father betrayed me. My mother betrayed me. Now my own ship has betrayed me.
A feeling of helplessness pokes around the edges of my mind, wanting in, wanting to flood everything else.
Three days.
My father is possibly only three days away.
And our ship is now drastically slower than his.
He’ll be upon us in no time.
The thought nearly leaves me breathless with fear. What more could I have done? We had a plan. We were doing fine—but I cannot control the weather. This failing isn’t my fault.
Then why do I feel responsible? Did I do something wrong? I discovered my father was not the man I thought him to be. I thought being away from him would be the safest for my crew and me. But by ordering everyone to leave the fleet, I put us in more danger than we’ve ever been in before.
But you gave everyone a choice, a small, rational voice argues in my head. You gave them the option to leave. They all chose to stay.
Still. My. Fault.
A body bumps into me, and I finally look up.
“Sorry, Captain,” mumbles Lotiya as she carries a load of planks for repairing the deck.
I take a good look around me, see the men hauling heavier pieces of debris over the ship, see the riggers working on fixing the two sails left standing, watch Roslyn sweep the deck with a broom—the faces of my crew.
They’re still alive. The pirate king is not upon us yet.
I’d let despair win too soon. All hope is not lost.
We need a plan.
“Kearan, Niridia! Meet me in my quarters now.”
Kearan has a fractured piece of wood thrown over his shoulder. He shrugs it into the sea before following after me, Niridia on his heels.
We go to my desk, bypassing Mandsy and Riden on the floor. I don’t spare them a glance.
We’re here for the map.
“We need a new mast,” I say. We can fashion one ourselves, but we need a tall tree for that. Those aren’t to be found in the open ocean, but if we’re anywhere near land …
“Yes, here!” I point to the island. The one where my parents met. It’s not far off.