Captain Kinsley gripped the rudder until dirt dug deeper under his nails. The Lioness rocked him side to side, her steady sway lulling him like a mother, like a trap. Some nights he imagined the sea wanted him asleep—obedient, blind. He'd lost his compass years ago. Thrown it into the waves. A captain without direction. His first mate called him mad, and maybe he was.
Bonnie Carmel's boots creaked across the deck before he even heard her breathing. She rarely slept. He'd stopped asking why.
She took a pull of bourbon, then dangled the bottle just out of his reach.
"No. Liars don't get alcohol."
"When have I ever lied to you?"
Her chuckle was small, sharp. Kinsley didn´t know what he was looking for. Not exactly. He imagined an underwater kingdom where sharks were the navigators and people were the followers. As the sea would have it, it was more complicated than that.
Her red hair whipped against the wind as she searched the horizon for something only she could see. Twenty-two, and she'd traded warm beaches for his black ship and colder company. Sometimes, Kinsley thought she'd joined him simply because they'd both lost too much, and loneliness recognizes itself. Loneliness was the last remaining proof that there was a living being behind the mask of stoic suffering perpetuated by the self-imposed search mission.
"Three months in the outer seas," she said, eyes narrowing, "and now you steer us to the most guarded island in the world."
Kinsley shrugged into the dark. His coat, like always, was black. He wasn't in mourning anymore. Not officially.
He meant to joke. "I like their rum."
Bonnie wasn't fooled. "The Valley is ashes. Dead land. Why would they guard it?"
"It wasn't always," he said. "Isla Rhea once held more color than the rest of Valorian combined."
Her pendant caught his eye—a trident of silver, clutched now by instinct. "You still pray to him?" he asked.
"Neptune was your friend."
That he was. "You liked him, too."
"That I did," she said, taking a hearty sip of the rum.
The ship shuddered. A blow struck the hull hard enough to rattle the quarterdeck. Bonnie gripped the rudder beside him, steadying.
"What the hell was that?" she snapped.
"A whale," he lied.
Another strike. The timbers moaned. Above, the crew spilled onto the deck in chaos. Bonnie's voice cracked into command. She drove them to order while Kinsley held the rudder.
The sea rose, then fell. Wind howled without a cloud to stir it.
Bonnie scrambled up the shrouds, scanning both sides, knuckles white on the ropes. The night was too still. Kinsley already knew what stalked them. He'd known from the first blow.
The cry cut through the waves.
His crew froze, terror-stricken. Bonnie dropped back to the deck, eyes blazing.
"Nereid," she whispered.
Her gaze shot to him. "These bitches guard Isla Rhea?"
"They don't." His voice was steel. "They're here for me."
A strong punch of at least three tails in a coordinated attack resumed the chaos and the fear that the flock would sink them.
"Can we outsail them?" Bonnie asked, terror in her green eyes. She was fearless, except when it came to Sirens. One of the secrets she kept close to her chest. He was sure they were going to have a conversation about trust later – if they were ever to survive this.
"No," Kinsley whispered.
They were not going to outsail them. They needed to hear him say it.
"Strike the sails."
"What?" Bonnie grabbed the collar of his coat as best as the awkward angle allowed her.
"We need to show respect, strike the sales, Miss Carmel," he said authoritatively.
Bonnie followed through when the crew gathered together, awaiting hell.
If two people could operate the Lioness, Kinsley would have never endangered the lives of twelve innocents. Alas. This was bigger than twelve human lives.
The attacks ceased. As did the angry sea.
The ship was surrounded by a bright blue light shining from underneath. Bonnie stepped closer, looking around, leaning over.
All they heard was a symphony of voices speaking collectively as if from one consciousness.
"Captain Kinsley," they sang. "Change your course. You will not find what you are looking for."
"What are we looking for?" Bonnie asked no one in particular. Sirens were not the sharing type, something they had in common with Kinsley.
Whatever purpose there was to the voyage to Isla Rhea, Kinsley relied on Bonnie´s sense of adventure rather than her suspiciousness to ask any questions.
"Turn your ship around. Return home."
"I don´t have a home," Kinsley said to himself. But they heard it. They might not be the sharing type, but their ability to see inside a man´s heart made them as empathetic as a monster could get.
"What if I refuse?"
"Then Queen Salacia will make sure you won´t see another sunrise."
There was silence as the ship came to a halt. With the wind leaving the sails and the sea denying cooperation, Kinsley witnessed not only his good sense but every proof of natural laws abandoning them in the middle of the Gorgian Sea.
One of the sailors who joined them most recently the one Kinsley commissioned himself, asked what they were going to do now that they had fallen out of Salacia´s good graces.
Bonnie seconded the question, pressed and pushed but Kinsley remained silent and withdrawn until there was only he and Bonnie left alone on the deck.
"Tell me the truth, Edward. If we were going to Isla Rhea for glory and riches, Nereid would not have attacked us."
Kinsley could tell that Bonnie considered running away. Despite the reputation of a hero, he had a knack for running too, just not the kind that would make one a coward in the eyes of a good society. The kind that used to break Neptune´s heart.
"What business does Salaci have with you anymore? There's nothing - no one - connecting you now."
"I will find an answer on the island."
"Oh, come on, Edward!" Bonnie hit the rudder with her hand hard, damaging the soft tissue of her palm. A single stream of blood came oozing out of the least protected vein. She ignored it. "What possessed you?"
"Nestor told me it was possible to bring someone back from the dead. All you needed was a dragon´s heart."
"Nestor is a drunkard. Has he your best interests in mind? Because even if it was true, even if Isla Rhea guarded the last beating heart of a dragon, the kind of dark magic that you could unleash would surpass any gratitude Neptune could display upon returning to the land of the living. And to his throne."
There was a lot of exhaustion injected into her words, as if she was saying that they had been over it. That a connection between a human and a superior being was impossible and could not end up in any other way than in mutual destruction.
Kinsley did not fault her for that. There was no blood of superior beings circulating in her family, nor was there in his. Any claim to divinity he had was borrowed from Neptune's lips. But he would still challenge the Goddess of the Twelve Seas.
Unlawful Goddess, whispered his subconscious.
The prickly little thing would not let him live, would not let him sleep, no matter how many times Bonnie had told him that Neptune´s death was not his fault.
He got distracted, she would say. And Salacia always aimed for his place on the throne.
And Kinsley tried to forget. Except that the two ports of the Continent were stacked with fishing ships that could not sail because Salacia hated humans and tried to starve them,
Nestor might have been a drunkard, but he was a pirate, too. Or at least, he used to be. How could he not try?
Isla Rhea once housed a dragon. Maybe the little guy just needed a nudge to come out. Maybe he was still alive.
"If we don´t do this, Salacia will bring her underwater kingdom to the surface and have her army engulf the Continent. Superior beings do not care about human lives."
Bonnie shook her head in disbelief. "But pirates do?"
"This pirate cares about one life."
"I´m guessing you don´t mean mine, otherwise you wouldn´t have thrown me into a lion´s den."
"This is a lion´s ship," Kinsley said, determined and guilt-free. He was sure the guilt would creep in eventually, and he would have to push it out again until the task was finished. Until he´d see Neptune´s wide sea-green eyes shine brightly with life again.
"We don´t even know where she buried him, Edward," Bonnie argued.
Kinsley smiled devilishly. Because it wasn´t a no, and a yes would mean nothing without a maybe in the middle.
"I know where he is buried."
n the beggar woman dressed in rags with skin barely hanging on her bones told him that there was a way to restore Neptune to his throne.
How could he not try? Even if dragons were killed because their hearts turned black and burned the sacred island to the ground shortly before Salacia pierced Neptune´s heart with his trident.
"If we don´t do this, Salacia will bring her underwater kingdom to the surface and have her army engulf the Continent. Superior beings do not care about human lives."
Bonnie shook her head in disbelief. "But pirates do?"
"This pirate cares about one life."
"I´m guessing you don´t mean mine, otherwise you wouldn´t have thrown me into a lion´s den."
"This is a lion´s ship," Kinsley said, determined and guilt-free. He was sure the guilt would creep in eventually and he would have to push it out again until the task was finished. Until he´d see Neptune´s wide blue eyes shine brightly with life again.
"We don´t even know where she buried him, Edward," Bonnie argued.
Kinsley smiled devilishly. Because it wasn´t a no, and a yes would mean nothing without a maybe in the middle.
"I know where he is buried."