Page 2 of Scourge of the Shores

She threw the double doors open, grabbed a second flintlock pistol from her belt, and shot at the wooden ceiling, silencing the ruckus in an instant. Amid the splintering wood pieces falling nearby, all eyes slid to her.

“What ye celebratin’?” Her question rushed out from a raw throat, adding a harsh note.

With one heavy, thudding footstep at a time, she entered the main hall. The echo of the water’s squish and the hard heel clacking on the floor reverberated in a solemn cadence.

The captains stood stiff, some gripping their rum bottles, others shifting weight between uneasy feet. Scotty exhaled slowly, rubbing his jaw. A few exchanged glances, waiting for someone to speak.

No one did.

“Tell me—we got a sea demon’s relic to gain a prophecy for our isle sanctuary?” Danna asked, waving her gun in the air. Her ears pounded from the silence. Spittle formed in the corners of her mouth. “Servin’ sea dragon steaks, perhaps?”

Her smile lived in mockery as she advanced and forced her words through tight teeth. “Harvestin’ sea dragon blood for poison? Inventin’ weaponry with its spikes?” She eyed each captain with a corded neck as she walked to the hall’s center, where a wide table had stood for generations.

A map of their families’ travels and navigation was etched into the polished wood surface.

They had mapped most of the known world.

She eyed their home on the map, their sanctuary island on the cusp of the West, North, and South seas.

Seeing it released the tension in her shoulders.

A long, slow breath whistled through her teeth in a hiss.

Hitching her flintlock back into her belt, she shook her head at the men and women in the room.

Every captain there had a pirate ancestor who wanted their family to be safe, and they were safe for hundreds of years until Cain found them.

Danna remembered her father’s stories of her ancestor, the first Pirate King, Chadwick, who retired to the island with his wife, his love, and his riches, and built the island’s reputation, attracting others to settle there at the end of their piracy.

But even though the island took piracy out of the pirate, it never took the pirate out of the person.

She placed her captain’s leather hat on the table and outlined their island with a finger. The poor, ignorant captains in the room failed to see that their goal had not yet been achieved.

With a renewed sense of control over the rage coursing through her body, she asked in a much more civilized voice, “Tell me. We’ve saved our home from the sea dragon?”

Her questions met with mute responses. Tension raised her shoulders to her neck, the longer the silence ensued.

Shoving her hands on her hips, she turned around to face them.

“Answer me!” Her voice broke mid-yell.

A long-time captain and Danna’s closest advisor, Lucas Ervin, stepped forward. Lucas approached with his hands out to his sides, one gripping a rum bottle’s neck.

“Danna . . .” He hesitated, shifting his weight. “Cain turned tail. That outta count for somethin’.” His brooding brown eyes pleaded with her as they had always done.

A string of “Aye”s followed him.

Danna took a slow step forward, eyes locked on Lucas. Then, with one sharp slap, she knocked the bottle from his hand.

The dark amber liquid splashed from the neck as the bottle’s body hit the floor and rolled to a stop beneath another captain’s nearby foot. It left a wide arc of rum with an instant aroma of deeply steeped spiced sweetness amid the stunned faces.

The room held its breath.

“Three ships: lost to the deep!” Danna’s eyes grew wide. Her ears burned. Heat rose to her head. Control was fleeting. “Three ships. Full of crew. Gutted! Not one survivor.”

She had hoped Cain’s death would win them a relic, the kind sea myths swore carried the DeepMother’s voice. A prophecy, bound to bone. Its owner gained not only power and respect, but a legacy entangled in fate—one step closer to the divine that might bless them or doom them.

But Cain still breathed, and the promise of prophecy remained just that: a tale, a myth, as distant as the stars.

Danna shoved Lucas in the chest, sending him a few steps backward. She ignored his disappointed gaze and locked her eyes with the other captains. She removed her dagger from its sheath on her belt and pointed it at a few in their faces.

“And ye’re in here celebratin’ what? Cain’s retreat ?”

Danna marched to the table and raised her dagger high, stabbing the map at the sea dragon’s supposed lair—a jut of black-silk waters near the siren’s realm in the West.

No sailor ventured into siren waters and returned. Cain’s lair wasn’t quite within their territory, but close enough to chill a man’s bones.

But Danna was no man. And if that’s where Cain curled to sleep, she’d wake him with steel. She’d make that beast pay for what he’d done.

Her nails dug into her shaking palm. Her fingers popped off the blade’s handle, and she stepped back, running a sleeve under her blood-dripping nose. Her weapon remained upright, its point buried deep in the wood.

“Make no mistake,” Danna declared with a pointed finger. All eyes were on her, watching her every move, except Lucas’s, whose gaze was on her dagger.

Her jaw loosened at Lucas’s silent disapproval.

He had been a surrogate father when hers had died, a young surrogate, but still, Lucas retained his sense of advisor and role of protector for her.

But celebrating when three ships were lost without winning was a perception between right and wrong—life and death. She was right. He was wrong.

She yanked her leather hat off the table, popped the dome, and placed it on her head.

“He’ll return,” Danna finally declared. “And we’d better kill him when he does,” she growled with the last of her voice.

She grabbed her dagger and, with a swift yank, freed it from the table’s grasp.

Her heavy footsteps echoed through the otherwise silent one-room main hall.

She threw the double doors open and let them fall behind her.

Her gaze lifted to the full moon as she rammed her blade back into her belted sheath.

The lap of the shore waters would bring the dead back to the island by morning. Her jaw clenched as she dreaded the wail that would follow. She stomped off to her hut and swung the door open. Her mother lay in the cot in the back near the fire.

“Danna?” her mother asked, her voice faint.

“Aye, Ma?” Danna rasped. She closed the door quietly with a controlled grip and walked inside, taking off her drenched captain’s coat. She draped it on one of the chairs around the small table.

“Did you get our victory?” Ma’s whisper barely made it to Danna’s ears.

Danna removed her hat and placed it on the table, saying nothing.

“Are we free of Cain?” Ma reached her nub out to Danna.

The nub shimmered in the firelight. The shadows falling on the burned scars on what remained of her arm reminded Danna why she hated that foul beast. The villagers saved her mother’s life by searing the wounds, but on the island, maybe they should have just let her die.

Her mother was not a pirate and never wanted to be one.

Her injury had stripped her of any life worth boasting in her eyes.

Her mother had slipped away, living in a shell of who she once was.

If Cain died, then maybe, maybe Ma would return to her.

Danna palmed her face, not wanting to tell her mother the truth. She licked her busted lip as the pain returned and throbbed. She turned her head to the left to release the tension in her neck.

“For now, Ma,” Danna said, with an expected break in her rough voice. She sniffed back the clotting blood in her nose. She removed her belt and set it beside her hat.

Ma lowered what was left of her arm and turned her face to the fire. “Well then, you’ve bought us some peace. You should be proud.”

“Lost three ships, though,” Danna said as the burn of unshed tears ran down the back of her throat. Her voice strained, begging for no more spoken words. “Done more damage than the sea demon,” Danna muttered.

Her fingers curled into fists as she stomped over to the fire and sat before it to remove her drenched socks and water-clogged boots. She glanced at her mother, who stared at her with a gleam in her eyes.

“Ma, don’t.” Danna slammed her boot down and leaned back on straight arms. Her head dropped. “They all saw Tophet ‘cause of me.”

“And yet this island lives because of you,” Ma whispered. “You’re a fearless leader. You make the hard choices. You do what’s best for all, even at your age. Why do you think these old retired pirate captains submit to your will?”

Because of Father’s lineage , Danna said with her eyes. It had nothing to do with her skill as a captain, a leader. He died before he could have a son, the first of their line not to have one, so the great mantle of the first Pirate King’s legacy fell to Danna—a five-year-old girl at the time.

Her chin touched her chest as she stared into the dancing flames. Its warmth touched her nose and cheeks. She turned her face away, not wanting the luxury of warmth.

“The dead’ll wash ashore by mornin’,” Danna rasped. “Be glad ye won’t see it, Ma. Ye’d think different of yer girl if ye did.”

Danna turned away, her body aching with exhaustion. The firelight flickered across the floorboards. Her mother’s breathing was soft behind her, but Danna didn’t look. She couldn’t. Not after tonight. She curled into herself, gripping the edge of her blanket like a lifeline.

She had vowed at eight years old, when Cain first came and took her mother’s legs and arm, that she would finish him.

Her thoughts raced back to a fortnight before the recent scrimmage with Cain.

She had decided to take the battle to sea before Cain could strike their home on land, despite the concerns of the other captains.

In truth, she wanted to be on the sea. The sea—the DeepMother—called her.

She thought the calling had been a premonition of victory.

Her lip curled at her stupid decision. The sting of her gash ran into her cheek and chin.

As the night had told her, she couldn’t do it.

She had lost three ships. She had lost their crews.

Their blood was on her hands. Perhaps it would have been worth the lives lost had they killed the menace, gained a relic, and ensured a prophecy would come to pass.

Danna’s eyes closed as she tried to justify the loss. Had Cain come to shore, he might have taken babes and children. He might have destroyed their homes again. He might have killed the crews anyway. Her shaky breath came out over trembling lips.

She’d make it right. She had to make it right.

Next time, she would kill Cain and take pleasure in doing so. If a relic came with his death, so be it. Let the prophecy bind her name or not. All she cared about was ending the torment and repaying blood for blood—the very acts of man that once broke the DeepMother’s heart.

The vengeful thought didn’t comfort her, but it cooled her burning throat.

Ma’s voice drifted through the dim room, quiet as the tide. “My girl gives her best.” A sigh, barely there. “Danna . . . I only wish I could give you some peace.”