Page 19 of The Withering Dawn
I’ve never kissed a man. If this is the last I see of you and this world, I wanted to know what it felt like.
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath. “Tell me I am an idiot.”
“Yer an idiot.”
“Agh, no. That didn’t help.”
“Cap’n. If it feels wrong to sell her, don’t. But now we have to figure out what to do with her. She saved ye and came aboard this ship for a reason. Find out what it is.”
By the next day, the sky had drowned in another wave of monstrous clouds ready to devour us whole. It was as if the weather was warning us to stay away from that part of the world. The part of the world where all manner of horrendous creatures haunted the water. The winds forced us to reduce the sails again while the waters thrashed like a wild bull trying to toss us off it.
“Storm’s not looking as friendly today, cap’n!” Cathal shouted over the loud sea spray rearing up from the bow.
I steered the Amanacer in the direction of the wind, riding the undulating waves with as much grace as the weather would allow. With most of our cargo tied down already, I wasn’t overly worried about things flying about, but the water threatened to push us indirections we didn’t want to go. Visibility was minimal. With how thick the clouds had become, there was little more sunlight than there was at night. Thunder clapped loudly, lighting up the heavens with flashes of white.
“Aleksi!” I bellowed. “Crow’s nest! ”
Without a second thought, he sprinted across the inclined deck to the mast. The man was slender and could carry his own weight better than anyone and his sharp eyes could warn us of rocks. Barefooted and fast, he ascended the shroud, battling high winds and aggressive rain. Every time the gale shifted, I turned with it, pushing the Amanacer every way the storm went in hopes of staying on its good side. As a large wave drove us up high and tilted the bow downward, a massive curtain of sea water rose up on either side with a roar.
“Woo!” Cathal hooted, flipping his soaked hair out of his face.
I let out a loud guffaw. The thrill of riding a storm on a ship like the Amanacer never got old. Most of the men remained below deck, likely hanging on for their lives as the ship rocked and swayed.
“We don’t need sirens to look death in the eye, eh!” Cathal shouted.
“Aye, we have all the danger we need right here!” I replied.
“Think she’ll pull through?”
“The Amanacer was built for this. She will outsmart this storm. She always does!”
The storm was a monstrous one. I could feel it through the wood of the ship, throwing the vessel this way and that like it was a plaything. I sat close to the bars, gripping them so as not to be thrown from one side of the cell to another. The way the ocean flaunted her unyielding power filled me with awe. I wished I could be under her waves, feeling her like I was meant to. Alas, I’d grown disconnected from the sea in my years being imprisoned outside of it. I longed to know her again, but I feared her at the same time. She was merciless and the creatures that now lurked in her depths even more so.
I could smell the salt and rain in the cool air and savored it, wishing it could just whisk me away forever and make the decisions I was so clearly unable to make. When I took Nazario’s blade to my hand, I had intended to make a point. A point that I was like him. That I could hurt like him and bleed like any man. I believed he took it as an attempt on my life and though the thought had crossed my mind a hundred times, I couldn’t do it. That was a trait my mother possessed but not me. She saw no light in the darkness. Not even the idea of leaving her daughter behind, alone and among wolves, swayed her.
And yet, I had nothing and still foolishly held on.
Hope. Hope was dangerous.
The way the sea writhed and hurled the ship about, up and down and side to side, reminded me so much of my own thoughts. Never steady. Never collected. Always quietly chaotic.
I heard boots on the steps and opened my eyes to see three men staggering into the hold, trying to maintain balance against the rough motions of the ship. None of them were Nazario and immediately I slid away from the bars to the back corner. There was hardly any light in that cabin, but I could see their faces well enough. One of them was the doctor with the glasses balancing on his nose. Behind him were two men with stained, wet shirts and stringy hair.
“We must be quick,” the doctor said.
He set down a leather satchel on the floor and opened it, digging through instruments with haste.
The two men approached my cell and one of them retrieved the ring of keys off the wall. He slid one into the lock and turned it, opening the gate.
“What do we do?” the other man asked. “Won’t it bite us?”
“Grab her, you fool,” the doctor said. “Fast.”
He pulled out tongs and a small, curved blade and immediately, I understood what was happening.
I shot to my feet, pinning myself against the wall as the two men cornered me. But they were hesitant.
“She’s half starved,” the doctor said. “Just get her!”
