Page 52 of Virelai's Hoard
An intense, rotting odor wafted through her nostrils, and her nose scrunched in protest. “Whatisthat smell?”
The pirates around pinched their noses. Venn gagged.
“Think it’s coming from your pack,” Thorian said, voice a nasal baritone as he held his nose.
Venn turned in on himself, then shrugged his backpack on the ground. He poked at it with his boot. The pack turned and opened. A molding, rotting sphere squelched on the ground. His eyes snapped to Sable’s.
The pears.
“Guess we’re not eating those after all,” Ignatius said, lips curled in disgust.
“Look,” a hushed voice beside her said.
Sable followed the pirate’s gaze to the forest. Or what had been the forest, once. Long before today. Today, the lush trees and undergrowth were gone. Black stumps shot up from the earth, gnarled and burnt. That was what she’d been smelling earlier. Ash and rot.
“We need to go back,” Sable said.
“Fucking told you the island was cursed,” Ignatius grumbled. “You should’ve listened to me.”
“Heard you the first fucking time, old man,” Thorian said.
“Call me old one more time. I dare you.”
Thorian laughed. It was the only sound that echoed around the dead island.
16. A Toll of Passage
Calla
Calla and her group followed the river inland, where the thick canopy of the jungle blocked the view of the sky above their heads. Heat and humidity clung the clothes to their skin as they hacked through the branches and vines blocking their path. Draven kept looking over his shoulder, a barely contained panicked white showing in his eyes at every snap and crack that accompanied their passing through. It put everyone more on edge than they already were. They should’ve left him on the ship.
“Something’s following us,” he said after a while, neck craning to peer past the trees at their backs. “Or… I dunno.”
Nyxen clapped him on the back, pushing him forward. “It’d be weird if there weren’t any noises, Draven. It’s a jungle. Things are supposed to be loud.” An encouraging smile. “Sure, keep an eye out, it’s fucking creepy in here, but if something happens and you’re already in a panic, you won’t be able to think straight. So go on, take a deep breath. Like this.” He inhaled noisily, and the sound scratched at Calla’s eardrums, making her twitch in irritation.
Draven followed suit, inhaling and exhaling and minutely relaxing his shoulders with every noisy breath he took.
“Just like that.”
Another clap on the back. More noise. It covered the sounds of the water rushing past, which was about the only thing keeping Calla’s hands from twitching. All she wanted was to take a dive, let the water surround her just long enough to soothe her itchy skin, patch her dry lips, allow her to draw inoneunencumbered breath. She’d been resisting the call for too long. Even breathing had become painful, every lungful scratching down her throat. Irritating rather than life-sustaining.
But she couldn’t. Even without anyone else around to see, she couldn’t. Because something told her—a bone-deep feeling that refused to go away—that the next time she took a dive, she wouldn’t be able to turn back anymore. She’d live out the rest of her days as a beast. She remembered the impulse almost taking over her the night of the storm. Dragging Riley up to the surface instead of diving deeper, in search of a place where no one would ever find them, had been near impossible to resist.Never again, she’d vowed after that, once she’d returned to herself. No matter what, she could not trust herself in the water again. Her skin was a curse. And it was going to take over her if she let it–if she didn’t put an end to it first.
A crack behind them, loud enough for everyone to hear, made Gadrielle’s steps falter. The boatswain frowned at the surrounding trees, then glanced at Nyxen. “You’re right. It’s a jungle. It should be far noisier thanthis.”
Nyxen scratched the back of his neck, thinking. “There mustn’t have been any people walking around in ages. We’re probably scaring the wildlife.” He shrugged then, and everyone kept going. “Cursed or not, this is far nicer than some of the ports we’ve been–”
“Quiet,” Calla hissed. The idle chattering was enough to bring her headache to an oppressive pressure behind her eyes. “I can’t hear anything over your talking.” She couldn’t hear the water. If touching it was out of the question, she needed to at least benear it. Hear it. Everyone should stay quiet or go back to the Moonshadow. Doing this by herself would be easier. If she were by herself, she could shed her boots and dip her toes into the river. Just her toes. Hell, even a bucket of sea water would do at this point. “Sobe quiet.”
She didn’t mind the looks they were giving her. It only mattered that they stopped talking. She inched closer to the river as they pushed deeper into the jungle.
But the quiet didn’t last long.
“It’s the trees,” Draven announced. “They’re moving. When we’re not looking.”
Calla fought to keep her jaws clamped shut. Then a dry branch snapped beneath someone’s foot. It tipped the oppressive pressure behind her eyes into a pounding headache.
“I said be quiet!” Calla snapped, halting her steps and turning on him. “Or we can leave you in the jungle to make friends with the trees.”
