Chapter Eight

I hated Crooked Nose.

No.

Hate was too mild a word – I loathed him. Just knowing we shared the same air made every breath I drew taste like poison – but not the kind that lulls you gently to an endless sleep – like the healers gave the elders, wrinkled like prunes left in the sun too long, to help them painlessly to the heavens – no. This poison was meant to be endured. Eating away at your insides, slowly, so at first you don’t notice, you feel a little weaker, tired before the sun sets, the spark fades from your eyes – but it keeps eating away at you, chomping on your liver, your lungs – your heart –gnawing on you like flies on shit, and by the time you realise the damage it has caused, you’re wheezing – coughing up blood, all your hair falls from your head.

And it is too late.

Rat boy’s warmth had left me. The light that trickled down from above had faded. I scrambled in the darkness for my pillowcase. Finding it, I plunged my hand in, feeling for my socks. Pulling them out in a bundle, I retrieved my amulet hidden inside.

Despite being days at sea, it still glowed dimly, enough to bathe the hold in a subtle yellow hue. Shadows cast from the barrels loomed and swayed with the creaking rock of the ship. The rats scurried across beams with glowing eyes as the pigs squealed, awoken by the sudden light. Snores from the hammocks above sounded like the rumble of a hungry sea monster. Despite the sticky heat, I shivered.

The stomp of boots on the staircase froze my body, but not my heart that thumped in my chest as my mind raced to crooked nose.

“What is that?” came a soft whisper.

Holding up my amulet, I illuminated the gangly figure of rat boy and my heart calmed.

“What is what?” I asked, confused.

“That light?” he cocked his head to catch a better view, his eyes like the captain’s – full of wonder at my treasure.

Forgetting that many did not know of sun crystals - they had been such a huge part of my life, yet I had almost taken them for granted - I now looked at it with fresh eyes. Light radiated from the yellow-white stone, the flecks of trapped matter inside cast shadows – fragmented fossils of long extinct creatures – land dragons maybe - it really was magical.

“It’s my sun crystal amulet. I was a priestess of the dawn back home,” I said, finally revealing my secret.

“How is it doing that?” he asked, more enthralled with the stone than my revelation.

“Glowing? It’s charged by Ansha’s light. It would be brighter, but its not seen the sun in days.”

“Can I?” he outstretched a hand. I hesitated. A priestess’ amulet is sacred to her alone, the bond between her and Ansha. It must never be given away or worn by anyone else - shaking Priestess Ahnn’s words from my mind, I placed it in his hand. As he held it up, the light struck half his face into darkness, but I could still see his secret smile, with his perfect teeth, glinting in the grey, and I smiled too.

“This would have come in handy earlier, I stayed too long letting you sleep on me, I had to do chores by moonlight,” he chuckled, but it sounded different somehow, softer maybe – all I knew was that it no longer made my skin prickle.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. Strange.

“Don’t be. Here-” he placed my amulet over my head, brushing a cheek with his rough hand, “I had an idea while I was up there,” he said.

“What was it?” I asked.

He brought a finger to his lips and winked, reaching out for my hand - I gave it gladly.

“The sea has calmed tonight,” he whispered and led me to the stairs.

“I don’t want to – not again,” I said, shaking my head, planting my heels into the floor.

“It’s okay, everyone’s asleep,” he reassured me.

Instead of scurrying up the stairs like his filthy rat friends, he gestured for me to lead. Taking a deep breath, I placed a bare foot on the bottom step. My knuckles strained white as I gripped the railing, determined I would not fall again. Preparing to launch myself onto the second step, I felt a hand on my lower back.

“I’ve got you,” rat boy whispered in my ear, and this time my skin did prickle, but not with rage.

Supported me as I climbed, tightening his grip only when the ship rocked atop the waves, I made it the second deck unharmed.

The dying light of my amulet fell on the faces of the sleeping men. Snoring like fat pigs grunting in their own shit, they smelled like them too. I had no idea how they could stand it. I covered my nose with a sleeve, trying to shield myself from the thick air, humid and foul reminding me of the time someone drowned puppies in the well back home in high summer, and left their rotting corpses for the vultures. Even the rats seemed not to venture to the sleeping quarters, despite the crumbs and apple cores littering the floor, deterred, I imagined, by the stench wafting from abandoned boots.

Rat boy pushed me on, silently urging me to stay quiet, but he need not bothered, I had no intentions of waking the beasts. Sneaking past the men dozing in their hammocks, I came to a pile of hay, strewn next to the second staircase. A stained sheet was thrown over it as a makeshift bed. It belonged to crooked nose, but of course he would sleep on the floor like the dog he was.

Staring at his hateful face, I stumbled on his jacket, carelessly thrown on the floor next to him, for he had no manners. Regaining my balance, I paused as my raving breath rattled through my nose.

I wanted to pick up that jacket, dust off the crumbs and dirt, fold it ever so neatly, taking care to tuck the sleeves in just so, and place it with such delicacy over his vile and ugly face, covering his twisted nose and his cracked lips.

I wanted to push.

Hard.

For that wheezing snore to be the last breath he ever took. I wanted him to wake - finding me above, suffocating him with his own stinking jacket, his eyes pleading with mine, bulging with fear and then with nothing.

I began to crouch, but rat boy’s warm hand was on my lower back once more, and the thought of murder drifted from my mind. I climbed the stairs instead.

Frigid sea air was a welcome change from the thick stench of the sleeping quarters. Inhaling deeply, I stepped up onto the deck, allowing the breeze to cleanse the vile taste from my lips.

Despite my dimly glowing amulet, there was a darkness I had never known before. The sun crystal lit just a few paces in front, but the shadows were all around me, threatening to engulf me, to drag me into their gloom. Shuffling to the bulwark I stared out at the nothingness. The light could not touch the empty void where the sea had once bee, yet I could still hear it, murmuring like the purr of a hidden beast, happy under its covers, sleeping, or waiting. It was strange, knowing it was there, hearing it was there, this huge, vast expanse of water, but not being able to see a single shimmer of it, like I stood on the edge of the world and nothing existed before me, and if I were to climb the rigging and jump, I would fall for an eternity into the shadows that would surely swallow me whole.

Rat boy joined me.

“Just wait,” the darkness ate his words.

“For what?” I asked, feeding it more, for it was starved.

“For the clouds to pass,” he said.

As if he were a god of the sky, chasing them down with a sceptre of wind, the clouds waned and parted, slowly revealing the glow of a silvery full moon and suddenly I could see the ocean again, glimmering like the scales of a fish gutted for a feast.

“Come, let’s get outta sight of Cricket” rat boy said, pointing to the short, bald man at the wheel.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“He keeps a steady course at night, but don’t worry, he’s deaf as a post and pirates cut out his tongue,” he gave a morbid smile that I mirrored as we moved away to the bow, easily dodging the piles of rope and the dozing night watch in the moonlight.

Rat boy placed Chip safely in an empty crate and handed him a cracker. We led on our backs together at the head of the ship, staring up at the sky opening up above us.

“Have you ever studied the night sky?” rat boy asked.

“No. Priestesses of the dawn covet the sun, not the moon,” I said.

“A pity. The sky sleeps in the day, it comes alive at night,” he pointed up past the moon, and as my eyes refocused, the stars came into view, “you can navigate with the stars you know, and you’ll have to learn them, priestess – if you want adventure on the ocean,” his chuckle was soft and warming in the chilled night.

“I’m not a priestess anymore,” I said, nudging him with an elbow.

“Aye, maybe not, but you’re no sailor either,” he said, “not yet at least.”

“You’ll teach me?” I asked.

“I’ll try, but I’m not a seasoned sailor myself, I had no Pa to teach me like the other boys. I’m motherless and unloved too,” he tilted his head towards mine.

Blushing as he repeated the words I had vomited in my collapse, I swept the hair from face.

“You’re an orphan?” I asked.

“Who knows?” he replied, “me ma was a whore, me pa was probably a sailor. Or could even have been a priest, apparently,” he snorted, "Ma died last year, and I ended up on this ship by chance.”

“At least you got to know your mother, I never knew mine.”

“Aye, but it weren’t worth much. She tried her best, but a brothel’s no place to raise a child proper.”

“Neither is a temple,” I said.

“I can imagine.”

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We sighed in unison, understanding each other’s pain. Staring up at the sky, the stars looked like a sprinkling of sugar on burned sweet bread. Never having paid attention to the night’s sky before – I laughed at myself - maybe I really was child of Ansha after all. But my eyes flickered to new stars emerging from the black with their reddish hue, and I was ready to convert to follower of Iysra, Goddess of night. It was beautiful, though dark like my mood of late and probably my soul, if Priestess Ahnn was to be believed.

“Look, there!” my musings were interrupted by rat boy’s cries. He pointed to the right - I saw it just in time – a speeding light tearing across the sky, a glowing trail fizzling behind, gone in the blink of an eye.

“What was that?” I asked as my hand scrambled for his arm.

“Relax, it’s just a shooting star,” he chuckled at my fear and my cheeks flushed.

“Why would a star fly away?” I asked.

“They’re not really stars. No one knows what they are. Some say they’re the gods themselves, watching over us,” he said, moving his hand across the sky.

Could it have been Ansha? Watching me bask in the glow of the moon, many miles from the Dawn Palace, wearing sailors garb and my amulet? I stupidly lowered my eyes, as if that would be enough to hide me from a godly gaze.

“But others say,” he continued on, “that it’s the power of the gods, a blessing to us or an answer to a prayer,” he smiled, apparently comforted by the thought.

“Have you prayed for something?” I asked, shifting onto my side to look at him.

“Aye,” he rolled to face me, “I prayed old ‘crooked nose’ would get what he deserves.”

“You did not!” I playfully pushed his shoulder.

“I did too!” he clasped a hand on my hip.

“Who did you pray to?”

“Who else could hear us out on the sea, but God Lemar?” he said.

“A perfect choice for revenge, for the sea is vengeful they say, unforgiving and strong,” my eyes widened, “how shall he do it?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he blew air from his pursed lips, “maybe- maybe every time he walks to the bulwark, God Lemar will send a wave up the ship and douse him with water, stinging his wretched eyes with salt and making him shiver!” his chuckle was rich and deep like the wine of Chrisanton, but his answer was weak and not filled with godly wrath.

“No,” I said, furrowing my brow, “he shall create a storm, one so vicious and strong that it could destroy everything in its wake, yet concentrated and cunning and devoted only to the destruction of crooked nose and horrible men. It shall sweep him from the deck, drag him to the depths where the creatures wait below to tear his flesh from his bones.”

“I see,” he raised his eyebrows at me, the way he did when my words became too much, and his grip loosened at my hip, “and what of me? Shall I survive the storm?” he asked.

“For now,” I smiled, clinging to his arm, “for you are not so horrible.”

“Not so horrible?” he asked, his muscles flexed under my fingertips, “now there’s a compliment for me!”

“The best you’ve ever got, I daresay,” I played along.

“Aye, probably is and all!” his chuckle washed the worry from his face, resting his forehead on mine, his grip returned at my hip. And all it took was half a compliment.

His eyes fell to my amulet. Lifting it from my chest, he turned it in his fingers, the dim light illuminating his soft lips.

“What was it like?” he asked.

“What was what like?”

“Living at the dawn palace?”

“The high priestess was mean, the others ignored me – except one,” I paused to think of priestess Ahnn, “she was kind, like a sort of mother in a way, but – but it turns out I was too much for her too.”

“I’m sorry. I was born in Lamaria you know-” he began slowly, “it’s brutal and the laws are oft not abided to. The only place of real order is the Temple of the Sea ruled by the priests that live there. I went to that temple once, for me Ma was sick and needed their medicine and not the salves my aunt made or the exotic remedies the sailors bartered with. Godly medicine. I were there but a moment, and I decided I would never wish to return. They were cruel, they spoke down to me and spoke ill of my mother. Nasty things they said. If your temple were anything like that – if you were raised by women like them, then I’m sorry you went through it,” he placed the amulet back down.

The High priestess was mean, she did not care for me when I craved her love, but could I say I suffered? Truly? Priestess Ahnn was my light in the dark. I had often thought that if Ansha did care, then she had sent Priestess Ahnn to love and look after me. And I had repaid her with theft and a broken oath.

“Tell me of the stars,” I said abruptly, turning onto my back, pushing the thoughts away.

Rat boy squinted into the darkness. Getting his bearings, he shifted onto his elbows, then pointed towards the end of the bough, to the brightest star.

“The mother light – the southern star,” he said.

“Mother light?” I questioned.

“Aye, tis called that on Lamaria, it’s always the first star to glow when the sun sinks, and is always in the south – it’ll guide you to the Isle of the sea, like your mother calling you home for dinner at dusk.”

“I like that,” I smiled.

“Yea, me too, I think of her as my mother, looking down on me, guiding me home after months at sea.”

“Perhaps that is where all Lamaria mothers go, maybe my mother is there too.”

“No, you look like you were born of Araf,” he pointed to the right of the star.

“Isle of knowledge?” I raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Aye, explains your wit and why I always find you reading that damn book!”

Demarion had travelled to Araf in the last chapter I had read. It was as if rat boy knew it, though how could he - I doubted he could read.

“Born of Araf?” I whispered.

The chapel rose up from the sprawling mess of pine trees, looking down on everything beneath it. Demarion and I stood at the port eyeing our destination with excitement. The chapel of Knowledge housed a copy of every book, every document ever created in Athovan. But by the end of the day, it would no longer be able to boast such a thing as fact.

The Ledger of Ships listed every vessel in port and sea, who owned it, what it transported and where, and how much it earned in that last three months. Designed for the tax man, in their greed they had failed to think of pirates.

Any fool could own a boat, but it took a clever man to turn a profit at sea. Sick of chasing down ships, wasting time and good men with cannon fire and cutlasses for a few barrels of grog and hard tack, it was our mission to pilfer it.

We dressed as common landsmen, tourists on our first visit to the island. A skinny boy led us up the hill on donkeys for a copper each. A small price for a hefty reward.

Reaching the chapel, we both took note of the guards. Just two on the main door to keep the riff-raff away, for who would dare steal from the gods? Their children, that’s who - the son and daughter of Lamar worried not for the tempers of the gods.

Giving each other a knowing nod, an understanding that could only come from the closeness of siblings, we went through the doors.

I was animated, pointing out the wondrous books to strangers, asking endless questions to the obliging monks, while Demarion scanned for the ledger. Once he had it in his sights, he gave a signal only I, his sister, knew.

“What’s this one?” I asked loudly, my voice echoing through the rows of books. Storming towards the old tome, resting on its wooden plinth, I tripped. On purpose of course, for my reflexes were cat like, and Demarion required a diversion. The plinth rocked as the monks scrambled to it, to save their precious book of Arafah, goddess of knowledge.

Tourists and readers looked on in horror as it teetered on the edge, even the guards came to see what all the commotion was for.

I glanced back over to Demarion, but he was gone.

“So sorry, I’m so clumsy, I’ll leave, I’ll go, I am so sorry,” I offered my most sincere apologies, bowing low, I turned and quick stepped from the chapel.

Demarion waited on his donkey, for me - he had slipped the boy four more coins to stay and wait. We rode them back down to the dock, and, content we weren’t followed or suspected, we stopped to drink to our success at the inn, before heading back to the ship, and the adulation of the crew.

“- course that’s a long way for a baby to have travelled,” rat boy finished the words I had been ignoring.

“What?” I shook the fantasy away.

“You were in a basket right? Naked as the day you were born?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Tis a long way to drift, months it would take, unless – unless you were on a ship, fallen over board, or in a wreck,” he said.

“Or born of the sea, a mermaid’s child,” I offered.

“A mermaid?” rat boy chuckled, but it sounded mocking and mean, and my cheeks reddened at the sound, “if they actually existed, and by some chance you were born of a fish woman, would you not have fins? Gills? A tail?” his eyebrows raised so high they threatened to lift from his ridiculous face and float away.

“Not if I was fathered by a man with legs,” I seethed, “that’s why she had to give me away, for I would never have survived in the ocean, and though her heart broke to push me ashore, she surely would never have recovered if I was drowned.”

For a brief moment it looked as if he was considering it.

“You amuse me, priestess,” he smiled instead, and led flat on his back.

“It’s Mara,” I said, scowling like a tiger, ready to pounce.

“And I’m Galen, not rat boy,” he said.

My scowl quivered, “fair point,” I said.

“My other theory is that I’m a child of Lamar,” I said.

“They the only two options?” Rat boy wrapped an arm around me, pulling me to his chest. I could hear his heart beat under his skin.

“Demarion was a child of Lamar, it would make me his sister,” I said.

“Demarion was a nasty pirate and a nastier drunk,” he said.

“How would you know?”

“He was a sailor and my mother was a whore,” he sighed.

“Oh-” I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I buried my face into his shirt and drew breath – musty but somehow sweet. His arms clasped around my tingling body, pulling me in closer as if he wished me to be part of him. I wrapped my leg between his, for I wished it too – I couldn’t be close enough.

“So if either of us is related to him-” he said and I willed him not to finish that damn sentence, “-it would more likely be me,” but he did.

Luckily a noise interrupted my uneasy thoughts of incest, startling me. Beginning as a low mumble, shifting into a wail, the eerie scream danced across the ship upon the wind. Amongst the creaking of the wood and hiss of the sea, it sounded like a ghost, haunting the deck.

“What was that?” I asked, pulling away from rat boy.

“It’s Lamar, calling you home for dinner,” he said with a snort.

“Shut up!” I slapped his stomach and he caught my hand in his.

“It’s the captain,” he said quietly.

“The captain?” I sat up, pausing to hear his words, but all I could make out was no, no, no.

“Yea, I hear him sometimes in his quarters, when it gets dark. Nightmares I recon.”

“Why would he have nightmares? His life is perfect.”

“No life is perfect, priestess - least of all his,” his fingers interlocked mine.

“Why? What happened to him?”

“I almost don’t wanna tell ya.”

“But you will? Won’t you?” I looked down at him and pouted.

“I don’t know - truth be told, you scare me a little bit and right now I gotta work out if it’s worse to tell you, or keep it to myself, and have you torture me all the way to Lamaria.”

“Tell me,” I demanded, squeezing his hand in mine.

“Or what?” he countered, squeezing back.

The wailing ceased. All I could hear was the creaking mast, the whispering sea – the crunch of a cracker eaten my vermin.

“I shall poison Chip,” I raised an eyebrow.

“Alright, alright, calm down priestess,” he sat up, “no need to drag the little fella into it! I’ll tell you, but you won’t like it,” he nervously chuckled.

“Tell me.”

“First promise me you won’t do anything – Mara-like,” he said.

“I make no promises.”

“Well Chip,” he called over to the shifting crate, “we had a good run mate - I hope the priestess makes it quick.”

“Fine,” I rolled my eyes at his goofy face, “I promise.”

Rat boy sighed. As if the weight of his secret weighed him down, he slowly stood. Leaning on the bulwark, he looked out at the sea. I joined him. The sea fizzed below us, the sound drowning out our voices.

“Captain Lott wasn’t always a merchant,” he said low and slow into the night, “he was once in the ocean guard.”

“An over paid lord’s son? He doesn’t seem the type,” my hands found some rope, and I leant into it.

“Aye now there’s peace it’s a job for nobility for sure, but we weren’t always safe on the ocean-” rat boy stared into the abyss.

“Pirates?” I whispered.

“Demarion was the last, but he weren’t the first. Captain Lott was once Commander Lott, so I’ve heard. Tasked to destroy them all, and that he did. Not before enduring capture, torture, and the death of his whole crew. One by one they fell in each new battle. He was the only one of his fleet to survive that last battle of fire and death, and it haunts him.”

“So if he was tasked to destroy them all-” I began and wished rat boy would not finish.

“He’s the reason Demarion’s dead,” but of course, he did.

Falling silent, I let the news fester in my mind, turning into a bubbling poison, the toxins filtering into my blood, pulsating round my body until it took hold and my skin itched and reddened. Captain Lott killed Demarion. He killed my brother. I was a guest of the murderer who destroyed the one person I understood in this world. Though I had only ever read of him, I felt a closeness that any sibling would feel to a brother or sister they had touched the flesh of.

“Mara?” he put a hand on mine, and I loosened my grip on the railings.

“I’m fine,” I said, but the quivering air that expelled from my nose proved otherwise. Why did I have to make such promises? I wanted nothing more than to barge into the captain’s quarters and slice his wretched throat with his own knife.

“I wish I hadn’t told you,” rat boy said, as if he could read my mind. Taking his hand away, he looked at me the way others looked at the skinny stray dog that begged in the village – with pity for its situation, but fear that it would bite if offered any comfort. I did not want him to look at me like that. I wasn’t a lost puppy, I was Mara – I wanted to be his priestess – his everything. Longing to go back, to when he chuckled softly and his ocean eyes sparkled – I craved his hands over my body again.

“I suppose-” I swallowed down my rage, “I suppose that’s why he’s so rich,” I forced a smile, as if the whole thing were a joke.

“Yea - yea,” the pity melted away, “he was given a share of each hoard, as a thank you from the high council, bet he’s loaded.”

I paused. “The high council?” I asked, the rage churning in my stomach, swirling in the pool of acid and chicken soup it threatened to release, “The High Priestess is on the council,” I said. My left eye began to twitch.

“What?” a new emotion crept across his face – a fearful confusion.

“The high priestess - the woman who rescued me from the sea, who raised me, watched me grow – she commissioned the death of Demarion. I had never thought of that before,” my knuckles burned as my fingernails dug into the wooden railings.

“I’m sorry, Mara, I know he means a lot to you, but she did what was best for Athovan,” he rubbed the small of my back, making me shiver away the itchy heat that had engulfed my body and my tensed shoulders relaxed.

I looked at him, the moonlight casting a silvery glow on his sandy hair - his eyes soft and calm like the gentle sea back home – like priestess Ahnn’s – not like mine. There was no way we were related. He was the bastard son of a priest – I was Demarion’s only sibling – his sister – daughter of God Lamar.

But we were connected through my father. What if he hadn’t been here? What if he hadn’t found me in the murky hull? I would have jumped from the rigging, slipping into the darkness of the ocean, never to taste the air again. He was my reason for living - my saviour. My gift. From my father.

God Lemar knew the horrors of the sea - the hideous monsters that lurked in his depths, whole ships destroyed by Feoras’ rock and swallowed by the raging waves, – but also he saw the men aboard them and he worried. He wanted nothing more than to protect me, the light of his life.

Rat boy was my gift, to love and protect me in my father’s stead.

It suddenly all made perfect sense to me. He was just for me. He was mine.

“Kiss me,” I whispered, and he turned to me.

Under the watchful light of the stars, he did as I commanded, before taking my hand and leading me to the stairs.