Page 10 of Virelai’s Hoard (The Dagger & Tide Trilogy #1)

Sable

Sable swept her eyes over the chaos occurring on deck and smiled. Any other time it would’ve given her a headache, but tonight? Tonight was special. Not many of the usual rules applied tonight.

Nivros hanging low on the horizon signaled the end of the sixth day since they’d set sail, and according to Merrow and his star map calculations, they were just about to leave the waters of the Quiet Sea.

The newest recruits were getting anxious, distracted, and the rest of the crew had grown cranky from long days hard at work.

That meant everyone needed a distraction. Sable included.

Hence the chaos.

Pirates milled about above deck, hanging up lanterns, dragging crates to sit on, bringing out their instruments.

The newcomers stood around bemused at the cheerful preparations taking place, understanding dawning on them only once Thorian crested from the main cargo hatch with a barrel of rum.

Other crew followed, four hands to every barrel and dumb grins on their faces.

An equally dumb one pulled at Sable’s lips as she watched.

A bell later, the night was in full swing.

Ignatius and Gadrielle wasted no time getting drunk, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders as they sang bawdy sailor songs to the tune of Eryx’s battered fiddle.

Haddock had a handful of younger deckhands around him as he recounted the legend of Virelai’s Hoard and her invisible island, even Pip silent for once as he drank in the old man’s words with wide, shining eyes.

A little further away, but also listening intently, was Merrow, and Sable couldn’t tell whether the look on the navigator’s face was guarded or intrigued as he snuck subtle glances at Haddock.

The entire crew was loud and raucous, yesterday’s complaints and tomorrow’s problems far at the back of their minds now. Sable’s own mood lifted with the buzz. A pleasant breeze made the lanterns hung around the deck sway lazily, and cooled her alcohol-heated skin.

“Another one! Another one!” Pip’s voice broke through the hubbub. “ Please .”

The desperation in that plea would make one think the kid had never had anyone tell him a story. Sable frowned at that thought. Perhaps he hadn’t.

“Oh, I’m not sure…”

Merrow looked at him with a glint in his eye. “Surely you have more stories in you, old man. And the night’s just begun.”

Haddock inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Very well. What do you want to hear?”

“Tell us about the before times!” Pip said, and no one argued.

They all settled more comfortably around the flickering lantern, and Sable stepped closer, leaning against a barrel and sipping on her drink as she listened.

“Centuries ago, people believed they owned the world.”

Sable’s eyebrows twitched. That was unlike any story starter she’d ever heard. Subtle looks of confusion breached the other sailors’ faces, but no one interrupted him.

“There were many of them, and they were loud, and they carved their names into everything they thought was theirs.

They lived on all the lands that wrapped around Rivera, and on islands now vanished from maps and memory.

Wherever they went, they built, and wherever they built, they burned.

Trees became timber. Rivers became roads.

The green retreated, and gray stone rose in its place.

“They took and called it growth. They conquered and called it order. They silenced the wild and called it peace.

“But it was never enough.

“Not for the hunger-born.

“They sailed for plunder, for glory, for sport, and cast nets into waters not meant for them. As their ships multiplied, they no longer looked to the sea with reverence, but with the cold gleam of ownership.

“The world had other children–beings of sky, root, current, and stone–who once lived alongside the people. But when the people grew bold, the others grew weary. They stepped back, not in fear, but in sorrow. Hoping the humans would grow wise with time, they waited.

“But patience, too, can bleed.

“One day, as Aelion dipped low and gold light brushed the waves, a merchant ship creaked homeward, its belly bloated with silk and salt-meat and more riches than its crew could count. The captain stood on deck, scanning the horizon for storms or rivals.

“He did not expect the sea to greet him.

“Beneath the water swam a creature of story–a child of the deep. A leviathan, not yet grown, sleek and shimmering, eyes wide with first-surface wonder. It danced along the ship’s hull, circling in curiosity, tail swaying lazily under the surface.

When the sailors gathered at the rail, pointing, gasping, the cub was delighted.

It thought their awe was kin to affection.

“The cub swam beneath the ship and breached the water in a spray of foam. It flung itself skyward, its skin glinting like moon- pale glass, so they might see all of it and marvel. When it landed, it pressed its snout to the hull like an offering of friendship.

“The captain stood still for a long moment. He stared. Wonder bled out of him like water draining from a cracked hull. In its place, hunger rose.

“What a prize this would be. What a marvel to sell. A beast of myth, the likes of which no human had ever seen before. A trophy.

“He spoke the word. His crew obeyed.

“Nets unfurled. Harpoons flew. The cub cried–not in pain, but in confusion. Like it wondered if this was still part of the game.

“And then, it stilled. Its blood foamed on the water like pearl wine, pale and iridescent.

“The crew lashed its body to the ship’s side like a prize. Their ship leaned with its weight. Cheers erupted on deck. From the water, silence.

“That day, the sea turned her back on the hunger-born. She whispered to her children, and they agreed: the people would not be destroyed, but confined.

“To Vareth, the merchant’s home. Now a prison, a cage with velvet bars.

“The land of Vareth would keep them fed, just enough to trudge by.

The sea surrounding Vareth would, too, and it would pose no threat to the humans, raise no storms, and would be named the Quiet Sea from then on.

Varethian ships would not rot in those waters, but be preserved, as both a reminder and a promise.

“And the other children of the world departed. They left the people their prison and watched from afar.

“For they still waited.

“Waited to see if one day, the hunger-born would become something else.

“Not masters. Not rulers.

“But kin.”

Silence settled, and Sable stared, dumbfounded. That was not–

“What the fuck are you on, old man?” One of the gunners spit on the deck, standing up.

“Next you’re gonna tell us the sirens don’t really wanna kill people, they just wanna play?

You’re lucky you’re not in Vareth no longer.

You woulda had your throat slit in the night for even suggesting the sea and its creatures are anything but evil.

Fuck off outta here with that bullshit.”

She spit again, at Haddock’s feet this time, and Sable braced herself for a fight breaking out, prepared to step in. But the gunner just glared and strode away on the opposite side of the deck, as if only the sight of the old man disgusted her now.

“I thought I’d heard every version of how our curse came to be, but I’d never heard anything about leviathans or merciful punishments from the sea. However did you come upon this story?” This was Merrow, who looked intrigued rather than angry, and Sable allowed herself to relax.

Gadrielle and Ignatius were too drunk to pay Haddock any mind, Eryx wouldn’t hurt a fly if they could help it, and the younger deckhands still hadn’t lost their wide-eyed wonder. Everyone else was too far to listen in.

“I lived it,” Haddock said mildly. “In a dream.”

A thoughtful sound came from Merrow. “You might want to be careful who you recount these dreams of yours to.”

Sable stepped away, leaving the bunch to their stories.

She thought of the old fisherman who’d raised her after her brother left.

He, like everyone, had claimed the sea had always been cruel, and that when she saw the people flourishing, she started fearing that one day they might grow strong enough to chain her.

And so she had raged. She had turned her children against the humans, and her children had persuaded the land’s children that with humans out of their way, the entirety of Rivera would be theirs to rule.

They’d joined forces, and they’d driven the humans out until all who remained were the people of Vareth, only kept alive as mockery.

For the sea’s own amusement, so that she might relish in her own cruelty.

There were variations of this, of course, but this was how the story went, always.

For Haddock to even joke otherwise… It was dangerous.

It was unheard of, even amongst pirates, who laughed in the face of Vareth’s fear and hatred.

Sable needed to have a word with him in the morning once she was clear-headed.

But tonight she was off duty, and she would very much like to keep it that way.

“The captain?” Ignatius asked as he sidled up to Sable. He topped up her cup from his own, spilling some of the rum on her fingers.

Sable flicked the stray drops away as her lip curled in irritation, Haddock’s strange story forgotten. “I’m done asking. If she really prefers to stay locked up in her cabin rather than out here, with me– us , then she’s welcome to her solitude.”

Ignatius tsked and drummed his fingers against the wood of his cup. “She’s a good captain, mind you. Better than I’d ever had. But…”