The Black Storm teetered for a one horrifying second, and then the bow dipped down. Selena held on with failing strength and watched the rest of crew do the same, clinging to lines or rails or each other as the ship cut downward. It sped down the face of the wave and then jounced across the calm sea that had not been disrupted with the magic, but was stubbornly flat with doldrums. Barrels and broken spars and crewmen clinging to anything they could, surged up and slammed back down again. Then the Black Storm settled and raced along the water that was smooth as ice. Selena cherished the smallest flicker of hope that they’d live.
Then her wave came down behind the ship.
Icy white sprays of water crashed over the Black Storm’s quarterdeck, drenching her again. She barely hung onto the shrouds. The ship was propelled forward, galloping like a startled horse. The stern lifted up and the bow was forced down as the wave carried it from behind. Half of the bowsprit broke off as it nosed under the surface, snapping lines, and taking two of its three of its unfurled staysails into the water. Lines from the foremast’s topsail were tied to the bowsprit. When those snapped, the topsail came crashing down, raining timber and rope all over the main deck. The prow was swamped and Selena thought she had wrecked the Black Storm even as she tried to save it, that it was going to dive under and break apart. An agonizing handful of moments later, the ship righted itself and the Black Storm coasted along the flat sea, riding the wave of Selena’s creation.
Relief and unimaginable exhaustion washed over her. Her hands slipped. She started to fall. Ilior was there but she stumbled out of his reach on trembling legs. A shadow fell over her and she turned in time to see the spanker boom swoop toward her. A heartbeat later, pain exploded across her face. She staggered as starbursts filled her vision. And then she was falling, falling…
She hit the water hard. It felt like a slab of ice that grew hands and arms and tentacles that dragged her under. A cold almost as deep as the wound infused her every fiber and she wailed in grief for the Two-Faced God must hate her so for having the hubris to call the tide again.
Seawater rushed into her open mouth. The icy water surged down her gullet, into her lungs, wrapping itself around her and squeezing until she knew only pain and cold and then, mercifully, nothing.
Blood Oath
Sebastian clung to a stray line. The deck was sodden and cold beneath him, blood and water swirling across the planks. My blood. My ship. My Storm.
The wind howled in his ear and icy seawater crashed over the rail. More and more would come and then the Black Storm would capsize. The brigantine would break apart in the merkind maelstrom and they would all die.
My ship.
Unless…
Selena was up on the quarterdeck. Ilior had hold of her by the belt. Her arms were raised, her lips moved, tears streamed down her cheeks. Sebastian couldn’t hear her cast her spell under the roar of the maelstrom, but he felt the magic. His ship began to rise, and with it a relief in his heart so fierce he thought he might weep himself. He clung tighter to the line as his ship was lifted out of spinning whorl and rode the crest of an enormous wave. Selena’s wave.
Such power, he thought and then fear stole his air as the ship dipped down when the wave lifted the stern. The bowsprit snapped and was lost and Sebastian was sure they would be too. But the Black Storm would not be swamped. It righted itself and raced along flat seas, driven by Selena’s spell and nothing else.
Sebastian climbed to his feet and his gaze swept across his deck that was awash in seawater and cluttered with broken planks of wood, torn and sodden sails, and loose rigging. Bloodied and drenched crewmen were finding their balance on the ship that cut water with no wind to propel it. But for Grunt. Grunt held his leg that was bent at sickening angle.
Sebastian looked for Selena or Niven. He turned in time to see the spanker boom that had almost knocked him overboard earlier come loose from Cur’s knot that tied it down. The boom swept across the quarterdeck and struck Selena across the face. Her head snapped to the side and she reeled toward the port rail.
She’ll catch herself, Sebastian thought and for a second she did; she caught the railing and held on. But the spell must have drained her. Or perhaps the cold was finally too much. The ship bucked and Selena was thrown over the side, the blue of her tunic flapped in the wind and then gone. She was gone.
It’s done. My last job…
Time seemed to slow down even as his ship tore across the placid sea. Niven emerged from somewhere, sodden and shouting and waving his arms at him like a madman, though Sebastian couldn’t hear what he said. Cat appeared and Sebastian wondered absently who was at the wheel. Blood streamed from her brow and she made the sign for “man overboard” over and over. Distantly, the wave roared. Or maybe it was Ilior. Sebastian held his breath like a drowning man in a black abyss, trying to hold back the water that sought to choke him. His lungs felt ready to burst and finally he gasped. Time lurched forward again and Sebastian took another breath, and with it he screamed.
“Svoz!”
The sirrak appeared to him in his usual cloud of foul stench that was blown away by the wind of the ship’s unnatural motion. Sebastian clutched his side and staggered to the port rail.
The shape-shifter peered overboard. “Have you lost my master?”
“Get her.” Sebastian seethed through clenched teeth. “Get her now!”
Svoz examined his immaculate black claws with agonizing slowness and an infuriating lack of concern. “Do you know what it means if I do this for you?”
“She’s under the bloody godsdamn water!”
“Blood oath.”
“Blood oath? What…” And then Sebastian felt another icy sliver join the nest of shards that pierced his heart.
A cantina on Isle Juskara. A jug of spice wine and his mark, a sand baron, and his sorrowful tale; a pact with a sirrak, a blood oath made and fulfilled years ago. The baron’s crimson, bejeweled hands—one of them scarred along the palm— had shook as he spoke of slipping a knife into his own wife’s heart as she slept. “What else could I do? The sirrak and I had the oath. The consequences for failure…” He shuddered and tried to drown the thought in wine. “I had no choice,” he had cried piteously to Sebastian Vaas, and of course Sebastian Vaas had no pity when he opened the sand baron’s throat later that night.
The memory flashed in his mind like the glint of fire on a blade and then was gone again. “Svoz,” Sebastian said in a strangled voice.
The sirrak was immovable. “Blood oath. Do you accept?”
Zolin. His hood a black cave. Do you accept?
Svoz withdrew a black-bladed dagger from his belt.
No! It’s my last job. It’s done. I can find Accora myself. There’s no blood on my hands. None…
“I’ll use my own,” Sebastian heard himself say, and found he had already taken his dagger to hand. He swiped the blade across his palm. The pain flared and was numbed as Svoz licked at the blood with his great forked tongue. Sebastian let the sirrak drink for a handful of moments, then tore his hand away from the repulsive sensation.
“Go!”
Svoz smiled a twisted smile made worse by the secret pleasure it harbored. “As you wish, Master…”