Page 64 of Virelai's Hoard
A cycle after they left Wraithspine Isle, Calla woke to the ship dead in the middle of the wide, open sea.
Nothing moved her.
Not the winds, not the currents, no amount of trying could persuade her. The Moonshadow stuck herself to the water as if she were an overgrown tree sprouting up from the depths. Cursing, shouting, and snapping proved equally useless tools, and Calla was mildly aware of how everyone flinched out of her way whenever she stormed the deck. How her pirates would not meet her eyes anymore. But it took all of her effort to hold on to the last shreds of her sanity.
Of her humanity.
Because Calla wasthisclose to giving in. These days she couldn’t be on deck for more than moments at a time without an overwhelming urge to step up on the railing and dive beneath the sea–her ship and her crew be damned.
And then the mist came.
Thick, green, roiling mist, pressing in from all sides. It stopped a few feet from the Moonshadow, as if the ship were the eye of a storm. At the edges of it, thin slivers reached out like claws, prodding and probing at the hull. Nothing else was visiblebut the mist, and as she gripped the helm of the Moonshadow and stared out at that mist, Calla could no longer tell day from night, could no longer keep track of time passing.
She knew what the sea wanted.
Her nails dug into the wood of the helm, going white with the force of her grip. It was all she could do to tether herself to the ship, to the crew she was responsible for. To the people she’d failed. If she closed her eyes, she could see it. The tablet. The writing she’d spent days translating over and over, even though she’d had it right the first time.
Now, the sea was out of patience. Now, it demanded an answer.
The crew at her back demanded answers, too.
The ominous letters flashed brightly against her eyelids.
Nothing comes without sacrifice. The path forward will open on the trails of the one marked by the sea.
Calla knew who that was. Who the mist was waiting for. The terrible decision she needed to make. One life against many. One life against a lifetime of pain. The terrible voice of the sea pressed in all around. Insisting. Demanding.
But a nagging question tugged at the back of her mind, almost too quiet to be heard over the weight of everything else.
Would she still be human if her monstrosity were on the inside rather than the outside?
At her back, the crew’s demands rang louder. Calla turned to face them.
As the pirates quieted and shifted under her gaze, the mist pressed in closer. Made it seem as if the ship were trapped between worlds.
One life against many.
They would all be doomed if she refused the demands of the sea. Of the Heart. She should’ve never brought them alongon this cursed journey. She could’ve found another way. There must’ve been another way.
The skin would’ve taken over, and your precious ship would’ve been doomed anyway. You know you must do this. You are saving them. They would’ve never even lived this long without you.
It was hard to breathe around the pressure in her chest, and her voice didn’t sound like her own when she finally talked. “We have a choice to make,” she said, her words clear and to the point. Surgical. “We can all either die out here, slowly, or give the sea what it wants.”
A moment of silence. The crowd stirred, a sliver of hope lighting up their eyes.
“And what does the sea want?” Nyxen asked. Before the mist, his voice might’ve been challenging, but now everyone was tired. On edge. Desperate to find a way–anyway out of this.
Despite everything, the crew was still willing to listen to her.
All Calla heard was the call of the sea. It was hard to remember why she kept resisting it. It would be so easy to give in.
A light touch at her elbow. “Calla?”
Calla recoiled, and Sable’s hand flinched away. Calla didn’t look at her. She found the crew’s eyes again instead. Worried. Expectant.
“A sacrifice,” she finally said, voice as steady as she could make it.
A hush came over the crowd. They looked at each other.
