Page 139 of Dark Water Daughter

I saw my mother, pulling me into an embrace.

And Samuel Rosser, smiling down at us.

FORTY-SEVEN

A Doorway in the Birches

SAMUEL

Through a veil of fine snow and the eternal dusk, I watchedHartdrop anchor in the channel beyond the Wold. I stood at the edge of the forest, its gentle heat at my back and the north’s bitter cold on my face. Around my boots, mist curled from bare earth and moss. It prickled at the exposed skin of my forearms, where I had pushed my sleeves back and my bandages clung. The scent of the forest was easy in my lungs, earthen, deep andcool—thebridge between unnatural summer and endless winter.

Hartwas battered and crippled, but he lived. His stovepipes released plumes of grey into the drifting snow as he settled in, his crew moved with calm efficiency, and Captain Fisher stood tall on the quarterdeck.

As the crew furled patched sails above her cocked hat, Fisher saluted me. I raised my good hand in return and started to pick my way down to the water, over the snowline and onto a blood-soaked beach that had, a few hours before, been covered with dying and wounded. Most of them were aboardHarpynow, moored off an ice shelf to the south next toNameless, or housed in tents inside the summer Wold. We would mourn the dead tonight.

My relief at seeing Fisher was sweet, but exhausted. I had been run off my feet since the conflict ended, organizing a search for missing allies and lurking enemies. I had dismissed my Other-born spider under Olsa’s guidance too, and it had faded back into its own world. But not before I looked it in the eyes and dispelled any last threads of fear.

“This is the beginning,” Olsa had told me as the creature faded. She patted my back and smiled with an amused, maternal glint to her eye. “You may be broken, boy, but you also have power you have not begun to understand.”

I had taken her promise to heart, tired and aching as I was. Beneath my weariness, there was deep, visceral satisfaction. Lirr was dead, and justice served. When we returned to Usti and the world learned who had brought Lirr down, my name would be beside Fisher’s, Benedict’s and Demery’s. It was the closest thing to redemption I could hope for, while Benedict’s lies remained intact.

I had done what I set out to do, and that knowledge was iron in my spine. But what came next?

When Fisher’s longboat drove onto the beach, I grabbed the bow with my good hand and hauled with the rowers. They had leapt out with a splash of water and crunch of rock and snow, and now their eyes strayed towards the mist-wrapped forest.

“Who survived?” Fisher dropped from the boat and took my forearm, her brusque comradery belied by the happiness around her eyes and the gentleness of her fingers. Half of her face was scraped raw, as if it had been scoured with sand. It oddly reminded me of Ellas’s scars.

She noted my bandaged arm with a wince.

“Everyone save Lirr, and many good sailors,” I replied. I held her forearm a moment longer, gave it a small squeeze and nodded up the beach as I let go. “The pirates have set up camp in the Wold.”

“TheWold…”Fisher eyed the summer forest, running her gaze from broad, wind-rustled leaves to the hedge of snowmelt surrounding it. “I have many questions.”

“So do I.” We started back up the rise, the crew from her boat falling in behind. “What happened to Ellas?”

“She’s dead,” Fisher admitted. She ran her tongue over the inside of her ruined cheek, then continued, “It was exactly as we feared. She and her crew waited until the ship was back in working order, then they tried to take it. She was shot.”

The fact that she did not identifywhohad done the killing worried me. I met my captain’s eyes, a question in them, but Fisher only gave a resigned smile.

“There will be questions, when we go home,” I murmured lowly. “Ellas was a decorated captain.”

“I know,” Fisher returned, without dropping her voice. The crew from her longboat, following us, watched her carefully. “I did what I did to protect my ship.”

“There’s not one among us who’d say different,” one of the crew commented. “Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n.”

Fisher cast the woman a small, thankful nod.

The Other pulled at me, sending half a dozen images of battle and blood through my mind. Some I knew were from the battle aboardHart, while others remained obscure. I glimpsed Fisher, wrapped in snow, her pistol sparking. Men and women screaming. A stag bellowing. Ellas, toppled into the sea.

I touched the coin in my pocket and the visions abated, though the feel of themremained—thetension, the shock and the pain.

But I felt no regret over Ellas. In truth, I wished I cared that she was dead. I ought to have borne some compassion; I had no idea how far Ben had pushed her, and how much of her betrayal was his influence.

But one look at Fisher’s battered face made that unease harden. However Ben had swayed Ellas, it did not change what she had done once he was out of sight.

“Did she do that to your face?” I asked my captain.

“The deck did this.” She looked at me with an amused crinkle in the corner of her eyes. It transformed into a grimace. “Though I suppose you could blame Ellas for dragging me across it. I’m quite all right, Mr. Rosser. Now, we’re all eager toknow…HasDemery revealed Bretton’s Hoard yet?”

---