Asta

I wake up on the floor, my clothes sticking to my body with enough sweat to sweat a full-grown Drake. I groan and press a palm to my throbbing head.

“Headache?” I look up to see Isabeth standing at the door, a bowl of soup in one hand. II nod, not wanting to speak. She sighs and puts the bowl at my feet. I pick it up and being to eat, not caring that it’s with my bare hands. When I’m done I set it down and stand up, swaying slightly. Isabeth notices, and a look of concern passes over her face. I know how I must look to her: a walking collection of bones held together with scraps of skin and pure willpower. During my nap, my body consumed more than what I had put into it to heal itself, fixing all the bullet holes and cuts.

“Rover wants to talk with you in his cabin. Allein.” She says the last word in her native tongue, thickly coated in an accent that betrays her birth in the Deep South of Ladia.

“And?” I can tell there’s something else she wants to tell me.

“He wants to know what happened. All of it.” Isabeth says, looking away.

“I thought you showed him when I got here.” I say, wrapping my arms around my ribs. Isabeth shakes her head with a jingle of metal and beads.

“That would be an invasion of your privacy.” Isabeth says, bending over to pick up the bowl. She stands and leaves, and I follow her.

“My rune is different from yours. I can see your memories if you allow it, and I see them through your eyes. I will not give those parts of you to Rover, unless you feel like revealing everything to him.” She says as we climb the stairs to the main deck. I swallow. Isabeth is right. There are parts of me that I want to hide. Parts I wish with every fiber of my being to forget.

Parts that made me who I am.

Isabeth looks at me, pursing her black lips.

“You seek something, nicht wahr?”

“No.” I shake my head.

“Very well.” Isabeth swings the heavy oak door open, sending a beam of light across the cabin. I blink, letting my eyes adjust. There’s a smoky, brandy scent hanging in the room, a half-hearted attempt to hid the coppery taste of blood. I blink, then see why.

Rover stands over a glass beaker he must have gotten from Piper. Red blood drips from a cut across the soft flesh of the inside of his forearm, and he’s squeezing it into the jar, where it mixes with a golden liquid that swirls up and down as Rover stirs it with his other hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask, eyeing a silver tube that runs along the ceiling, coming to an abrupt stop over a cauldron.

“Testing a new weapon.” Rover doesn’t look up when he answers.

“Was?” Isabeth says, the neon green ring in each eye widening.

“Aye. Before you ask a thousand questions, do you remember Samuel?” Rover glances up, and I see a spark in his pale green eye I’ve never seen before.

“Ja. Why?” I barely knew Samuel, the only thing I remember about him being the sharp dry flute of his laughter.

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“He was planning a poison that would sedate a Drake without killing it. A poison that could also be used in much, much smaller doses on weavers. I am trying to recreate it. With little success.” Rover says, going over to a yellowed piece of paper held up with a nail on the wall. Scribbled on it is a list of ingredients in jagged handwriting.

Before Isabeth or I can respond, the door flies open, and Crank bends over at the waist, panting for breath.

“What is it?” Rover barks, annoyed at the beer bellied pirate.

“Several ships, captain. Off the port bow. And captain?” Crank pants, his full moon face red from lack of air.

“And what?”

“They’re flying the green and purple Krayken of Hadir.”

Mary

I hear pounding above and around us, the feet of pirates as they ran on the deck.

“That’s not normal.” Edward says, tilting his head back to peer at the ceiling.

“What’s not normal?” James asks, raising one brow.

“The amount of footsteps. There’s a lot more then there usually is. Sounds like the whole crew.”

“You don’t mean-” I try to bury the hope that’s starting to blaze its way through me.

“Precisely. The Scarecrow has probably spotted another ship, and is preparing to either attack or defend. Draking ships are meant to hunt Drakes, not other ships.” Edward sighs, running his bound hands through his long brown hair.

A thud rings like a cannon, and we all jerk, tensing. The over-weight pirate Rover called Crank enters, the door swinging on its hinges behind him.

“Get up.” We obey, and he opens the cell door, ushering us out. He herds us out onto the main deck. The deck is crowded with pirates running around, I search the crew for Asta’s slim form, and come up fruitless. What I do see is the female Fiberweaver standing under one of the spiral stairs to the poop deck, eyeing the crew with narrowed features.

“Over here.” Crank shoves us to the other side of the main-mast, where three sets of shackles hang from the orange crystals at the base of the mast. On the wood are dark stains, and the shackles smell of rust and copper. Crank bends down and clamps a pair around each one of our wrists, securing us to the mast. I scan the crowd one more time.

There.

Asta stands near the hatch boards, hands hanging at his sides. His feet are spread wide, and his clothes and hair are drenched. A deep horns sounds off in the distance, and I squint, trying to make out the three shapes speeding towards the Scarecrow at top knot. Ships. Soon, I can make out every detail, enough to see the coat of arms billowing in the breeze. A krayken stitched in gold on a flag with the upper half green and the bottom half purple. Hadir. Standing right behind the figurehead of the first ship is a man with long light brown hair and a full beard.

“Father.” I choke out. James gives my hand a squeeze. The ship my father’s on, the North Swan, swings around to broad side the Scarecrow. The two crews face off, glares and muttered curses and insults gathering like the Plague.

“Dear, friend. Had I known you were coming, I would have prepared tea.” Rover yells, his voice carrying over both vessels.

“You are no friend of mine, sjóræningi.” Pirate. My father says, his deep baritone sending vibrations through the air.

“Mary, can you translate?” Edward whispers, eyes flying between my father and Rover. I nod.

“Hvaða fyrirtæki?” Rover says.

“What business?” I tell Edward and James.

“We speck in this tongue, or we don’t speak at all.” My father demands.

“Very well. What business?” Rover snaps.

“I want my daughter and the surviving crew members you took from the Morning Glory back.”

“King Harold, I can only give you one of those things, for the entire crew of that pathetic ship are dead. And as for the lovely little Drake we captured, I had no idea she was your offspring. If I had, I would have given her my own bed.” Rover says. Harold’s cheeks go bright red.

“You filthy djöfull.”

“Djöfull means devil.” I say under my breath.

“Got it.” James says into my ear.

“I thought we agreed not to use more than one language.” Rover growls.

“I see no reason to follow the rules of negotiation with a pirate.” Harold spits, face flushed.

“If you refuse to follow that particular codex, then so will I. We are each a side on the same coin. You being the rule loving yellow-bellied dog, I being the pirate you will hunt to the end of your days.” Rover taps his peg leg three times, and the whole crew jumps into action, a clearing of bodies around Asta.

The pirate boy stands there, eyes closed. Then his form begins to contort, the outline of his frame growing and expanding until he is no longer a scrawny boy, but a massive black dragon, identical to the dragon that destroyed the Morning Glory, down to the last scar.

Asta was a Dragonweaver.