“Nightglass,” a voice calls above, cutting through the boards. Boots strike the deck as the crewmember he called for hurries over.
“Captain.”
“Can we sail...-” The rest is swallowed by the wood. “..intermaria…storm..”
The timbers creak above me. I press myself against the barrel, trying to hide, heart hammering.
“...currents…against us,” Nightglass answers, his words carrying in broken pieces. “The sea…tear us apart.”
Silence follows.
“Captain…orders?” another voice asks, letting the title linger so that I catch it.
The pause is long enough to make my chest tighten. Then the captain speaks, his voice authoritative but calm – controlled. “... follow…the bloody Glim.”
A chill ripples through me. If they choose to sail through the intermaria, the ship is doomed. The Intermaria is where two seas meet, constantly fighting for the upper hand. The result is strong currents and – less commonly but still a very real possibility – maelstroms that swallow ships whole. Only those who live beneath the sea know the safe route through. The thought of being trapped down here while the ship sinks makes my stomach twist with fear.
“You’ll be the death of us, Sable,” the doubter spits, loud enough for me to hear. “The Glim has disappeared. We don't know if it's the right route.”
“It’s Captain to you, Ash,” he replies, the words sharp, though only parts of it reach me. “...what do we have to lose…don’t follow it…sea will claim us…”
The deck groans with their steps. I have to know what they’re saying. Before I can stop myself, I move, climbing the ladder as quietly as possible, until I stop just beneath the hatch. Up here, the voices are clearer.
The Captain – Sable – lowers his voice. “If you mean to revolt against my orders, then speak. I would take great pleasure in watching you walk the plank. Until then, obey.”
The steps move away at last, fading into silence, and I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My muscles ache from keeping still. I climb down as carefully as I can and fumble for my hiding place.
Suddenly, pain spears through my right foot.
I bite down on the scream, teeth grinding together, and hunch over to look at the affected area. A rusty nail pierces through my foot, driven clean through flesh. The acidic sting of nausea rises up my throat, threatening vomit. I have never experienced such searing, violent pain. My hands shake as I grip the wood for balance, every nerve screaming out against the iron intruder.
Tears blur my vision as I force myself to lift my foot free. The sound of my flesh clinging to the metal is wet, and the pain nearly knocks me flat. Blood wells fast, hot against my skin, spilling over my toes and pooling on the boards. I press my palm against the wound, breath stuttering. I count to ten, the way my mother taught me to prepare for when she pulled me under the water.
Slowly, I limp back to my hiding place, my injured foot dragging behind me, leaving a glistening smear of red across the planks in my wake. I clamp my teeth together and scan the hold. I need to stop the bleeding. Fast. Cauterizing the wound is not an option, and I do not have any alcohol on hand to sterilize it either. My only choice here is to apply pressure with whatever fabric I can get my hands on. I catch the loose end of the sail and pull it free, the coarse weave biting my palms, then I tear off a strip with my sharp canines. They are not nearly as sharp as a true siren’s, but they cut cloth and skin well enough.
I brace against a casket and wrap the strip around my foot. Once. Twice. I pull it tight until the throb jumps in time with my pulse against the taut fabric, tucking the loose end underneath the binding to hold it in place. Another tear trickles down my cheek as I let my back slide down the stacked caskets, the unevenwood catching on the bumps in my spine. I keep my hand on the bandage and close my eyes, gathering myself for a moment.
I blink them open again at the evidence I have left, the crimson mark I have made on the dark wooden boards. Should anyone come down here and notice the trail of blood, I am finished. Worse yet, once the pirates realize what I am, I’ll be thrown overboard or sold on the markets before dawn. And they do not kill you quickly there. They meticulously pluck the scales, one by one, with a tool they call the flute, then put them in those wretched little cloth bags to sell. I have seen the stains of life on the planks in Cantora, and the buckets of its waste emptied into the sea.
Perhaps they’ll take their sweet time, torturing me, killing me slowly, the way they believe most sirens enjoy doing to them. They won’t care that I’m not truly one of them. That I’ve never killed–that I never mean to kill. Every pirate has lost someone to a siren. I know my father certainly did.
But I can’t lie to myself. The hunger is there. It courses through my veins and takes shape in my dreams. A version of me I don’t recognize, dragging a man beneath the waves, tearing him apart, offering him to the sea. I shiver at the thought of doing something so violent, so unlike me, and apply more pressure to my still-bleeding foot.
I glance at the steps leading to the orlop, weighing up my options, when the hatch is thrown open with a bang, and someone rushes down. Down into the hold, where the iron of my blood hangs heavy in the air. Where I sit, hunched over, desperately trying to make myself smaller. My body stiffens, and I swallow down the bile at the thought of being discovered in my current state.
“Carpenter, you’d best earn your keep! Stitch my ship up before we reach the strong currents!” the captain bellows from above.
I hold my breath, fear washing over me once again as I stare at the threat in front of me. The carpenter strides toward a damaged part of the hull with a sloshing bucket in hand, cursing under his breath, too intent on his work to notice me crouched in the shadows between caskets. He drops beside what looks like a crack in the hull, plunges a hand into the bucket he brought, and begins ramming a coarse, fibrous mass into it. Oakum, if I had to guess. In calmer times, I might marvel at the speed and certainty of his craft. He turns, probably spotting another fracture. I freeze, my breath vanishing from my lungs as his gaze sweeps over my hiding spot. For a moment, his bushy eyebrows knit together as though a confusing thought has entered his head, and then thankfully, he returns to his task.
He did not see me. But it's only a matter of time before he does.
When I am sure he is fully focused once again on fixing the hull, I gather my skirt in one hand and push myself upright. The world blurs when I put weight on my injured foot, and I swallow the cry that claws up my throat and shift to the other leg, fingers digging into the edge of a nearby crate.
He is only a few paces away, kneeling beside the breach. If he turns fully, if he takes two steps to the left, he will see the blood. The blood of a siren. On the planks between us, the dark smear glistens in the thin light from above. I have to make my escape now.
The steps could lead me upward, away from him. But I must be cautious not to let the sound of my movement give me away. Waves batter the wood of the ship, threatening destruction. If I move with the sound of the waves, there’s a chance their noise might swallow mine. When the next wave rushes against the hull, I move.
The pain that courses through me only propels me forward, each step aligned to the beating of the sea. Wave. Step. Wave.Step. I slip past the edge of the casks, and reach the steps. By the time I reach the top, sweat slicks my palms from the effort. Peering through the opening, I can make out a few lanterns that hang from the beams above, their glow barely fending off the dark. Hammocks sway lazily between them, but no pirates lie in rest. I bunch my skirt and hurry deeper into the belly of the ship, stars flickering at the edges of my vision, exhaustion and pain shadowing my movements. Footsteps echo behind me, but I do not dare to look back. Looking back would only slow me down. It would only provide me with reason to panic.