Page 36 of Virelai's Hoard
“Why is that?” she asked instead.
“You might fall off.”
A frown. “Why would I fall off?”
Eryx’s voice lowered in a hush. “Because of the sea. It’s… calling.”
Riley couldn’t dig anything else out of them afterward, but the warning was enough to creep her out.
So later that night, she traded the windy crow’s nest for the warmth of the galley. Once she was certain no one would walk in on her, she pulled out the parchment she’d stolen from Calla’s quarters and tried to decipher the writing under the flickering light of a candle.
It took her a while, but a victorious smile slipped on her lips once she figured out the words.
Heart of the Abyss.
Before she’d gone under deck, she could still see the silhouette of Eryx standing at the railing against Nivros’ waning light, staring at the light reflections in the water.
Would they know what this thing was? She didn’t think they’d tell anyone else if she asked, but she also didn’t think they’d be receptive to questions right now.
Carefully, she folded the drawing and nestled it into a cut on the inside of her boot, then blew out the candle. She already knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, but she knew better than to tempt her fate up in the crow’s nest after that warning, that storm she shouldn’t have survived.
In the morning, Eryx was still there. And the air… was different. As if a song vibrated just at the edge of her hearing.
“Eryx?” Pip asked, concerned. “Are you ok?”
Eryx didn’t answer that. Instead, they said, “I think you should call the captain.”
11. The Call of the Sea
Eryx
Eryx waited on deck, going through the arguments in their head. None sounded convincing enough. They knew something was wrong. They even suspected what was wrong. But they couldn’t for the life of them figure out how to explain it to someone else.
They weren’t dumb. Making claims they couldn’t back up and then expecting everyone else to take them seriously was a fool’s quest. But there had to be a way to make themselves heard, even if it meant fabricating evidence that didn’t exist. They were loath to do that, but if they’d tried harder that night of the storm then Calla would’ve fully trusted them and they wouldn’t have lost anyone. That couldn’t happen again.
Footsteps clicked on the deck at their back in a rhythm they instantly recognized.
“Eryx?” the captain asked.
Eryx turned to face her, parting their lips to speak and closing them immediately after.
The captain didn’t look well. Her eyes were tired, with faintly dark circles beneath as if she hadn’t been sleeping. Her cheeks were pale, lips dry, and the skin on her neck and hands was flaking in spots, though she tried to hide it with powder. Even her voice, usually calm–edging on warm–was brusque.
Eryx had always felt a weird sort of affinity with their captain, noticing the shifts in her mood days before anyone else picked up on them. But this did not feel like a mere shift in mood. They suspected Calla had her own link with the sea, but different from theirs. Something old and painful. Something that punished her the more she resisted it. Eryx, not for the first time, wished the captain could trust her crew enough to ask for their help, or at least not suffer in silence. Whatever it was, Eryx wouldn’t turn their back on her. The rest of the crew wouldn’t either. The pirates on this ship weren’t as scared, or hateful, as the people back in Vareth were. And they loved their captain. Eryx believed that in their heart.
“Is something the matter?” Calla asked, a clearer note of impatience in her voice.
“I…” Eryx hesitated, then squared their shoulders, looking Calla in the eye. “We’ve entered siren waters. It won’t be long before the others will hear their song too,” they said, with more confidence than they felt.
Calla considered Eryx for a moment, forehead creasing just a touch. Then she walked past them and placed her hands on the railing, closing her eyes as she listened. Her frown deepened. “Are you sure?” she asked.
Eryx despised that question. How was one to be sure about anything? They’d neverseensirens before, only heard about them from older sailors, drunk on rum and the heights of story-telling. From their grandmother, when they were just a child, a blanket gripped tightly between their tiny fists as they brought it up to their nose, spooked but still listening to her every word, enraptured.
They still nodded. “Yes.” They’d rather be wrong and ridiculed for it than to be right again and not listened to because they hadn’t been confident enough.
The song in the air was clear to them, a low mournful hum that had kept them checking the waters for slivers of scales for the better part of two days. They’d wanted to be sure, but the song was getting louder, and there wasn’t much time left. The others would start hearing it soon. Ripples in the water appeared just this morning, in small contained circles surrounding the ship, as if something was boiling deep beneath the surface. They shifted places and numbers as the Moonshadow sailed on.
Far ahead, a cluster of stone peaks rose out of the water, perhaps the remains of a cluster of drowned out islands. A vague sense of dread gripped Eryx’s chest as they stared at those, at the narrow passage the ship had to cross if they were to continue on their journey. Merrow had been unbending about it, insisting it was the safest route they could take.
