But she’d promised. She had promised Silas to keep it secret.
“It’s all right,” she heard the Captain say. A spear dove between his legs and skittered down the walkway. He yelped. “It’ll hold.”
Silas had told her that Thymis cursed this port, that the Goddess of the Emerald Sea had plunged her own hands into these waters. She had carved cavernous ruts into the ocean floor with her fingernails, had drafted treacherous currents that could sink any ship in this quay.
A wooden dock would not hold against Thymis’ fury if the Goddess willed it to perish.
Draven barreled ahead as if to test the planks for himself. The Captain ushered Sol along behind him, his heavy burlap sack tucked into the bend of his arm. Sol wondered what was so important that he could not abandon it to flee.
An arrow whizzed over their heads, spearing for Draven’s backside. Dread struck Sol still, sank into her core with the weight of a ship’s anchor. She opened her mouth to scream at him, to beg him to move, to duck, to dodge. Too late—she’d seen the arrow too late—
The arrow shattered into splinters.
His hand was still raised as the Captain said, “Keep going!”
Sol should thank him, should get on her knees and kiss the planks beneath his feet. But her mouth would not move, her tongue like lead behind her teeth. Her heart raced, a frantic, sputtering cadence in her chest, a symphony of drums without a conductor to keep their tempo. She feared it would burst through her ribcage.
This boy—this Captain—was a Magic-Wielder. The thing Sol was not supposed to be.
The dock gave way to an open stretch of sea, and Draven slid to a stop. He paced along the narrow piece of wood that led onto the marvelous ship, one more beautiful than even her father’s warships. The Captain thrust her towards it. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
Sol turned to Draven and grimaced. “You first. It’s not me they’re after.”
Draven bolted up the gangplank if only so his charge would follow him. His paws thudded against the bowing wood, and as Draven leapt over the ship’s exquisitely carved railings, shouts erupted from the deck.
The Captain huffed. “You next. And keep your hood up. That hair of yours paints a target on your head.”
Sol gripped her hood and hesitated for the briefest moment. She did not know this boy. She did not know his crew, where they’d come from, or where they might be going. She did not even know his name.
A spear clattered to the walkway at her feet.
Perhaps she could ask him later.
Sol stumbled up the gangplank with the Captain close on her heels. He gripped her elbow to steady her. “Go!” he urged. An arrow shot over his shoulder. “Amael!”
A dark-skinned boy with the kindest eyes leaned over the side of the ship. “Shit. Another one? Gods, I hate this port.”
Amael offered Sol his hand as she reached the top of the gangplank. He hauled her onto the deck, then nudged her aside and helped pull his Captain over the banister. Amael gripped his shoulder as he panted. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Where’s Riel?” He bent at the waist and grabbed the gangplank. “Is she on board?”
“She’s with Gray at the helm, waiting for you. What happened?”
“Same shit, different port. Raise the anchor, preferably before that mob boards my ship.”
Amael dipped his chin at the order. “Aye, Cap.” He turned to Sol and grinned, as if this were nothing new for him. “I’m Amael. Nice direwolf. Welcome aboard.”
“Now, Amael!”
He shot across the deck and flitted through a crowd of deckhands.
The Captain tossed the gangplank onto the deck and kicked it against the hull with his foot. He spun to look at Sol and raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever been on a ship before?”
Sol wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling small on a ship so large as this. “No.”
“Then you’d better find something to hold on to.”
Draven padded to her side, and there was nothing Sol could do but drop to her knees and hold him close to her chest. He nuzzled her cheek with his nose as the ship lurched beneath them, taking Sol’s stomach with it; she nearly vomited into Draven’s fur.
The Captain drew a shuddering breath as the anchor was lifted from the water. A gust of wind pushed against the billowing white sails, and Sol wretched as the ship spun out from the dock. She was thankful she had not eaten.
“Riel, take the helm!” the Captain commanded, side-stepping Sol as if she were little more than a speck of something on his deck. “Amael, get your ass into the rigging and loosen those lines before they snap! How many times have I told you—”
Sol did not listen to him, did not care what he demanded of his crew. She buried her face into the broad swell of Draven’s chest, muscle and fur warming her stinging nose. He was tense, his body stock-still as Sol curled into him. Draven rested his head on her shoulder, tucking Sol even further into the safety that had always been the direwolf.
“Captain!” a girl cried, her accented voice shrill with unabashed terror. “Fynn, we’re being followed!”
He must have still been close by, because Sol heard him spit a string of curse words that even Silas would have balked at. “I hate this port. I hate every godsdamned inch of it. Gracia, get below deck. Take Nyx and the younger deckhands with you.”
Sol recoiled. How old was the crew of this ship if the Captain, who did not look a day older than Sol, was not the youngest? Sol’s insides writhed with warning. Mistake—following this man and boarding his ship had been a terrible mistake. If children were on this ship, it was far too likely that the Captain intended to sell them—to sell Sol.
She needed off this ship, would swim back to shore if she had to.
Sol lifted her head and peaked around Draven’s shoulder. She blanched. Valestorm was a speck on the horizon, a stain on the edge of her empire. Sol could not go back, could not get there, not even with the use of Magic. She’d freeze to death in the icy water long before she ever reached the harbor.
And there, closing in on her and the crew and this ship, was another. It was not unlike her father’s monstrous warships, the ones that he and Silas had sailed to Dyn all those years ago. Its tattered sails were taught against the ocean breeze, and billowing black flags hung from the tops of every mast. The ship wasn’t as big as the one she escaped on now, but it was fast, cleaving through the Emerald like Thymis herself was at the helm.
Sol squinted against the sunlight, shimmering like stars off the water, bright enough to blind her if she stared too long or too hard. She wanted to observe the other ship, to see if perhaps there was someone on board who could save her, who would not sell her to the highest bidder.
What she found instead was more gruesome, more awful.
She shrieked.
Human bones were fastened to the rails with rope; femurs and rib bones and tibias, fractured skulls and bits and pieces of pelvic bones. Polished teeth hung from clear fishing lines, rattling in the wind like the mouths they’d been pulled from were still capable of speech. And there, hanging from the bowsprit like Silas had told her in his stories, was the severed head of someone, their skin still rotting away to expose the ivory underneath.
Sol hunched over her knees and heaved, gagging until her own bones hurt. Stomach acid bit at the back of her tongue, and tears began to gather along her lashes. Until now, Sol could not remember a time in her life when Silas had ever miscalculated. He was perfect, always had been, and her parents and their kingdom loved him for it. But this—this was a mistake. Sending her away was the stupidest decision she’d ever seen him make.