Page 13 of Virelai's Hoard
Riley grinned.
“Whoa.” He resumed walking, sneaking frequent glances at Patch, who raised on two legs and started sniffing at the unusual scents in the air. “I didn’t know they could be trained like that. We usually kill-” Riley cringed, and Pip slapped his hands over his mouth, letting out a, “Sorry,” between his fingers.
Then he spotted something and darted off. “Eryx!”
Someone.
Pip ran up to another young deckhand busying themselves with a coil of rope. They seemed maybe a couple years older than Pip, slender and slight with dark salt-damp hair cut short and oddly pale skin. They looked up from the knot they were trying to detangle, the movement rattling the seashell hung at their neck.
“Look!” The boy pointed at her rat, still perched on her shoulder. “His name is Patch!”
“Nice to meet you, Patch,” Eryx said, their voice calm and melodious, their relaxed posture in complete contrast with their friend’s. “And…” a questioning lilt as they looked at her.
“Riley.”
“Riley.” They nodded. “Watch him around Boarley. He can make stew out of anything.” With that mild warning, they returned to their work.
“Over here!” Pip said, pulling her to the railing. “Did you look at the water yet?”
Riley shook her head. She’d been a littlebusysince departure. “No. Why?”
A wide grin spread across the young pirate’s face. “Go on then, look!”
Riley squinted at Pip suspiciously. He seemed much too eager, bouncing on his heels excitedly as he spurred her on. A few of the other pirates glanced in their direction, though they looked away as soon as they caught Riley’s gaze. He was up to something. She just didn’t know what. Riley kept her guard up as she gingerly stepped up to the railing and peered over, taking care to keep both feet solidly on deck. Surely he wouldn’t try to push her over, but she didn’t know what else to expect.
Below, the hull cut through the gentle ripples in the water, leaving trails behind like fingers dragging through sand. The brother suns’ light glinted off its surface, making the color flicker between gold and silver. It was beautiful. Nothing like Saltmere’s murky, shallow waters.
“Well?” Pip prompted.
Riley leaned back from the railing. “Well, what?”
He looked at her really intensely for a moment, then his face fell. “Oh. No matter. We should get moving,” he said. It only took a beat for him to perk right up again. “Wait, no! One more thing! You have to spit.”
“What?”
“Into the water. You have to spit.”
Riley blinked at him. “Uh… why?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “Because!” Then, thinking hard. “You give the sea something of yourself, that way she won’t take the whole of you.” He nodded to himself, satisfied at the explanation.
Frankly, it sounded made up. “Wouldn’t that piss it off?” Riley asked, dubious.
Pip laughed likeshewas the one saying silly things. “That’s a human thing. And it’sshe.”
“Huh.” At Pip’s expectant look, Riley leaned over the railing again and spit.
The young pirate nodded, satisfied, and then they moved on.
But Riley couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why did you look so disappointed before?”
“Er…”
Riley raised her eyebrows at the guilty expression on his face.
His cheeks flushed. Then he spilled it so fast Riley had to take a moment for the words to register. “New hires usually barf when looking past the railing for the first time and I might’ve bet on that happening just now and I was disappointed because I hoped you would but you didn’t so now I lost my wager.” He took in a deep breath after that and quickened his pace.
Riley, her mood slowly lifting, took pity on him and didn’t press the matter.
