Page 36 of Virelai’s Hoard (The Dagger & Tide Trilogy #1)

Calla

A cycle after they left Wraithspine Isle, Calla woke to the ship dead in the middle of the wide, open sea.

Nothing moved her.

Not the winds, not the currents, no amount of trying could persuade her.

The Moonshadow stuck herself to the water as if she were an overgrown tree sprouting up from the depths.

Cursing, shouting, and snapping proved equally useless tools, and Calla was mildly aware of how everyone flinched out of her way whenever she stormed the deck.

How her pirates would not meet her eyes anymore.

But it took all of her effort to hold on to the last shreds of her sanity.

Of her humanity.

Because Calla was this close to giving in. These days she couldn’t be on deck for more than moments at a time without an overwhelming urge to step up on the railing and dive beneath the sea–her ship and her crew be damned.

And then the mist came.

Thick, green, roiling mist, pressing in from all sides.

It stopped a few feet from the Moonshadow, as if the ship were the eye of a storm.

At the edges of it, thin slivers reached out like claws, prodding and probing at the hull.

Nothing else was visible but the mist, and as she gripped the helm of the Moonshadow and stared out at that mist, Calla could no longer tell day from night, could no longer keep track of time passing.

She knew what the sea wanted.

Her nails dug into the wood of the helm, going white with the force of her grip.

It was all she could do to tether herself to the ship, to the crew she was responsible for.

To the people she’d failed. If she closed her eyes, she could see it.

The tablet. The writing she’d spent days translating over and over, even though she’d had it right the first time.

Now, the sea was out of patience. Now, it demanded an answer.

The crew at her back demanded answers, too.

The ominous letters flashed brightly against her eyelids.

Nothing comes without sacrifice. The path forward will open on the trails of the one marked by the sea.

Calla knew who that was. Who the mist was waiting for. The terrible decision she needed to make. One life against many. One life against a lifetime of pain. The terrible voice of the sea pressed in all around. Insisting. Demanding.

But a nagging question tugged at the back of her mind, almost too quiet to be heard over the weight of everything else.

Would she still be human if her monstrosity were on the inside rather than the outside?

At her back, the crew’s demands rang louder. Calla turned to face them.

As the pirates quieted and shifted under her gaze, the mist pressed in closer. Made it seem as if the ship were trapped between worlds.

One life against many.

They would all be doomed if she refused the demands of the sea. Of the Heart. She should’ve never brought them along on this cursed journey. She could’ve found another way. There must’ve been another way.

The skin would’ve taken over, and your precious ship would’ve been doomed anyway. You know you must do this. You are saving them. They would’ve never even lived this long without you.

It was hard to breathe around the pressure in her chest, and her voice didn’t sound like her own when she finally talked. “We have a choice to make,” she said, her words clear and to the point. Surgical. “We can all either die out here, slowly, or give the sea what it wants.”

A moment of silence. The crowd stirred, a sliver of hope lighting up their eyes.

“And what does the sea want?” Nyxen asked. Before the mist, his voice might’ve been challenging, but now everyone was tired. On edge. Desperate to find a way– any way out of this.

Despite everything, the crew was still willing to listen to her.

All Calla heard was the call of the sea. It was hard to remember why she kept resisting it. It would be so easy to give in.

A light touch at her elbow. “Calla?”

Calla recoiled, and Sable’s hand flinched away. Calla didn’t look at her. She found the crew’s eyes again instead. Worried. Expectant.

“A sacrifice,” she finally said, voice as steady as she could make it.

A hush came over the crowd. They looked at each other.

“To open the path forward, we need to sacrifice someone marked by the sea. That’s what the tablet says.”

Why are you asking for their permission? You already know how this ends.

Calla closed her eyes. A flash of Draven walking into the lake, laughing as the rotting hands dragged him under the surface. And then, silence.

When she opened her eyes again, they settled on Eryx.

The young pirate looked calm. Resigned. As if they’d been expecting this.

Calla didn’t realize she’d taken a step forward until Sable stepped in front of her, cutting off her view.

The flashes of gurgling laughter faded as she stared into her first mate’s hard eyes.

The harsh curl of her lips, the disgust on her face.

“No,” Sable said, crossing her arms. “Absolutely not. I can’t believe I have to even say this, but we’re not going to sacrifice people, Calla.”

The harshness, the challenging, the disgust… A distant part of Calla knew they should’ve all felt like a punch to the gut. But all she could feel was the pull. The whispers.

That voice she’d been hearing was her own. It must’ve been. Was that the beast she’d been spending her whole life silencing, pushing down, hiding?

She was so tired now. That must be why she couldn’t silence it anymore. Couldn’t fight it anymore.

Soon. It will all be over soon. Do what you must.

Calla faced the other pirates. With some effort, she asked, “Do any of you have a different solution? Because I’m listening.”

Feet shifting, uneasy frowns, lips pressed tight. No one talked.

They are all cowards. Only you can do what must be done.

Sable still stood in the way. “We’ll keep waiting until we figure out something else. We have rations.”

“Not for long,” Thorian intercepted, an ever solid presence at her back. “There’s no fish in these waters. And we don’t know when we’ll reach the mainland again after this, or if we’ll be able to find a pirate cove nearby. Starving on the way back still means we’re dead, mist or no mist.”

Uncertain murmurs lapped around the deck. Eryx’s head drooped.

Sable shook her head and squared her shoulders, adjusted her stance as if she was expecting a fight. As if she was ready to fight Calla on this. “I knew you were a lapdog, Thorian, but this is too much, even for you.”

A muscle moved in his jaw. “I’m being realistic .”

“Fuck that,” Sable snarled. She pointed a finger at Calla’s. “And fuck your treasure. This is crossing the line.”

The voice inside her head laughed.

You are doing all of this for them, and still they do not trust you. Respect you. Imagine if they found out what you really were.

A flare of anger sparked in Calla’s chest. Just who did Sable think she was?

Did she think this was easy for her? Shouldering all the responsibility so they didn’t have to, making all the decisions the others wouldn’t be able to live with?

This entire time Calla had done nothing but look for another way out of this, but there was none.

It was too late. She’d brought them to a point of no return and the only way to get out of this was–

Calla took in a sharp breath, her thoughts clear for the first time in cycles.

If it were up to Sable, she’d make the crew starve out at sea rather than sacrifice one of her own to save the many.

It was a good thing Sable wasn’t captain, then.

Calla would make the choice Sable didn’t have the heart for, and they could all spit in her face after, once they got out of this alive.

Yes. You get it, now.

A wave of calm washed over her.

“Thorian,” Calla said. She didn’t take her eyes off her first mate. “Take her to the brig. A night in the cell might clear her head, or at least stop her from doing something stupid.”

Pain twisted Sable’s features, quickly morphing into disbelief, then realization.

Thorian took a step toward her. In a split moment, she had her machete out, blade pointed at the quartermaster.

“This isn’t you, Calla. It hasn’t been you for a while.

You’re not fit to lead us, not in this state.

” When Thorian stopped advancing, Sable dropped her machete, but Calla would’ve preferred a stab to the gut to the last words coming out of her mouth. “You’re not our captain anymore.”

The statement struck the deck like a blow to the head. It shook the crew out of their stupor.

Venn threw his hands in the air. “Damn right she isn’t!” He turned to the pirates around him, leaping on the opportunity. “First she got Draven killed, and now this? None of us are safe with her in charge.”

Some of them nodded along, others studied their surroundings, assessing which way the wind blew. Most of them seemed uncertain.

“It’s not fair to blame Calla for Draven’s death,” Nyxen spoke up.

He threw Calla a look she didn’t know how to interpret.

Was he apologizing for before? Because this wasn’t what he’d told her on the island.

“Not any more than it’s fair to blame me, or Gadrielle, or Draven himself.

We were all there. We all failed him.” He swallowed thickly, crossing his arms and blinking up at the green-filled sky.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Venn, but we all knew what we were signing up for.

If anything, Calla tried to talk us out of it.

She practically begged us to abandon the ship back when there was still time.

” He shook his head. “Or did you all forget?”

Calla looked at him, at a loss for words.

Behind him, she spotted a head of dark curls, ducking out of view, getting lost in the crowd.

Kittredge looked between him and Sable, between Calla and Eryx, lips pressed tight, as if she were only just merely stopping herself from screaming out in frustration.

Ignatius didn’t look happy when he said, “A sacrifice to the sea might seem harsh, but all of us dying because we’re refusing to? That’s harsher, eh?”

“You’re only saying that because it’s not your neck on the line. You’d change tune real quick if the one marked by the sea were you.” Calla had never witnessed Merrow’s anger, and the glassy sheen of his eyes was something a different version of her would’ve flinched from.

As it stood, she dug her fingernail into the wood of the helm until it splintered. The nail or the wood, it didn’t matter. The pain was a relief, tethering her against the call of the water. She couldn’t do this for much longer.

You do not need to do this for much longer. Just see this done, and it will all be over.

Haddock looked at them all with a meek shake of his head, holding onto the ship’s railing to steady himself on his feet.

The day and night work to make the Moonshadow sea-worthy again had sapped much of his strength, and he still hadn’t recovered.

“Oh, dear children. A mutiny against the captain is not a thing to be taken lightly. I’ve seen this sort of thing end in bloodshed more than once, and then more than a single life will be lost. For what?

” He turned his clear blue eyes on Sable.

“Are you fit to be our captain? You hide it well, but you’re always so scared I wonder how it is you haven’t choked on it yet. ”

Sable’s eyes snapped to him, widening. “You’re just a shriveled old fool,” she snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But the others looked at her differently, whispered with new realization. Even Venn turned thoughtful.

The balance was slowly shifting, and Sable’s stance turned defensive. No one looked at Eryx. Eryx themselves had yet to say a word. The mist pressed in closer, thick and claustrophobic. The sea demanded a decision. A decision Calla had to take, because no one else would.

As if she had complete trust that her crew was still her crew and that they would listen to her, Calla said, “Everyone, get under deck. None of you need to be here for this.”

Her pirates understood what she didn’t say. Everyone but Eryx.

Sable’s machete clattered to the wooden planks as Thorian grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her back.

There was a lost look on her first mate’s face, then her eyes closed.

When she opened them again, it was with new determination.

She looked at Nyxen. “You were only wrong about one thing before,” she said.

The deck hushed in anticipation. “We didn’t know what we were signing up for, because the captain hasn’t been entirely honest with us.

” Her gaze fixed on Calla’s, and Calla’s blood ran cold. “Were you, Calla?”