Aodhán beheld Meenlaragh’s little port and wished he were dreaming. The thatched rooftops torn by cannon. The cod-laden drying flakes burning to cinders. The Sealord’s warships lurking in the bay, sapphire banners and pearlescent sails over sleek hulls, while their landing parties pushed the townsfolk to the quay.

Mother. Tears blinded Aodhán – and his captors dropped him into the dirt. Footsteps shuffled beside his left ear, followed by a lisping voice.

“Oh dear, this one’s…”

“Split in the head,” One Eye said. “Jax’s work not mine. Heal him up, Seer. This one’s a keeper.”

“You fools treat the merchandise too coarsely. And you wonder why my father has grown impatient!”

“Just heal him you beardless sop,” Jax said.

“I will not be spoken to like that,” the Seer said. “I am a son of Sealord Uther Freon, and a Seer! I -”

“And you’re mighty far from your father’s teat,” One Eye said. “So shut up and do your job before I give you a wound of your own to mend.”

The Seer muttered something, and Aodhán felt palms rest on his throbbing head. Tingling warmth flowed into him, stirring his mind into a haze, and the next thing he knew he was kneeling, seeing clearly, his pain gone but for the terror knotting his stomach. Everyone had been clustered along the wharf, a battered assortment of fisher folk in roughspun and sea lion cloaks. The older children had been separated from the rest and were bunched before the largest dock; a mass of quivering, soaked boys and girls from eight to fourteen. Aodhán craned his neck to look back, trying to find Mother and his siblings amidst the crowds.

“Oi! Eyes forward!” Jax jabbed Aodhán’s shoulder with his musket.

Look forward Aodhán did – and saw the hulking shadow of a frigate pulling alongside the quay, her sails blotting out the grey sky while her rows of open gun ports threatened with their twenty-four pounders. Unlike the others, her sails were black, though she still flew the Sealord’s colors – a sapphire banner with silver thread depicting a heroic figure with lance and judgment scales striding upon a triple row of waves. The figurehead on its prow yanked Aodhán’s heart into his throat. A blindfolded lady with tar-black hair crying tears of studded sapphires. The Lacrimae. Ilya cel Viteazu’s ship. In an instant, a thousand frightful stories told by candlelight came true.

Why? Why us? What did we do!

The thoughts ricocheted around Aodhán’s head until the gangplank slammed down a meter away, spattering him with mud. The Seer – a wiry, hairless young man in ocean green robes and a necklace of silver eyes – declared over the wind and distraught cries.

“Silence! In the name of Sealord Uther Freon!”

When the villagers kept lamenting the Seer rolled his eyes and gave a dismissive nod. One of the Lacrimae’s cannons fired straight into the masses – and at a lazy wave of his hand, the swarm of grapeshot stopped in midair, held by the Seer’s shimmering sorcery.

Silence.

“Much better.” The Seer flicked his wrist, and the grapeshot fell to the ground. One bumped into Aodhán’s knee. He stared at it numbly until boots thudded on the plank.

Everyone knew Ilya cel Viteazu, the renowned privateer-turned-outlaw who had been pardoned by the Sealord himself in exchange for her fealty. Baroness of the sea, captain of the Lacrimae, hand of the Sealord. A creature whose legacy was written in blood and tears. Aodhán had never seen her, and now that he did, he realized the stories had been inadequate.

He had never thought a lady could look so cruel.

Ilya strode down the ramp as if she were a landlord inspecting a condemned property, her knee-high boots mirroring the fires, her black oilskin greatcoat drinking in the light while the blue jay feather in her tricorn hat seemed to glow. Her right hand rested on the jeweled pommel of her saber, and with every step the blade rattled to the tune of the pearls woven into the braids of her white-blonde hair. Her face was pale as death, marred from chin to left eye with three jagged scars, her lips flat with indifference. She stepped gracefully to the cobblestones and surveyed the masses. Even the ocean seemed to hold its breath.

“My apologies for the rudeness of my men,” she said at last, her voice cutting the air like a shard of ice. “But the tide is going out and I am in a hurry. Do as I -”

“You can’t do this!” Bran McCullum, the town’s carpenter, red-faced and shirtless, pushed through the crowd and pointed a meaty finger at Ilya. “We made a pact with the Sealord. You can’t take our -!”

A hole sprouted in Bran’s chest. He gaped like a beached trout, then dropped into the arms of his comrades. Ilya handed her smoking pistol to One Eye.

“Brave fool. Make sure his family is compensated. One hundred Arums.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Ilya wiped her hand with a white cloth. “As I was saying, I’m in a hurry. I don’t want to kill you. I am not one of those inebriated raiders from the north who exalts in bloodshed. I only came for these.” She looked straight at Aodhán, then nodded to One Eye. “Line them up.”

The villagers cried out as the children were lined up, but another cannon shot silenced them again. Aodhán wished he was big enough to fight the Sealord’s men, but they put him in his place easily enough.

“Aodhán?” someone whispered.

Aodhán blinked, and realized they’d put him next to Aaron, his best friend.

“Are you okay?” Aaron said, pale but still resolute enough to smile, which lit up his freckly face as surely as the sun lit up his tousled auburn hair.

Aodhán nodded. If he spoke, he knew he would sob.

“It’s okay. We’ll get through this.” Aaron winked, even though his smile wavered. Aodhán loved him for that.

Ilya walked to the end of the line, hands clasped behind her back. “The situation has changed, and your old pacts with it. The Sealord has tasked me with finding something of paramount importance. For that, he needs brave girls and boys like you. You can all have a part in a great mission.” Ilya stopped at the first boy in line, Petyr, the oldest among them at fourteen. “I am hereby pressing all of you into service. Starting with you, boy. Will you serve?”

“Go drown yourself!” Petyr hissed. “My father’s a captain in the merchant marine. When he hears about this he’ll gut you like a fish!”

“Your father won’t do anything. The merchant marine belongs to the Sealord, and so does he. As for you…” Ilya nodded to her men, who dragged Petyr to the edge of the quay, slit his throat, and pitched him into the waves. Aodhán would have jumped to his feet had Aaron not grabbed his arm. Ilya stepped to the next child, Maria, a stick of a girl Aodhán collected seashells with. “Now, will you serve? Or do you want to keep that fool company?”

Maria opened her mouth, speechless. Her dark hair fluttered in the wind.

“I’ll take that as a resounding yes.” Ilya smiled and went down the line.

Everyone agreed after that. The closer Ilya got, the more Aodhán felt as if his heart would burst. Don’t cry, he told himself. Father told you not to cry, not until he comes home. Until then… Aodhán grated his teeth and touched the silver half-coin tied to his wrist – the other half was with Father, to connect them no matter how far the waves separated them. It had made him feel strong on many a stormy night, yet now it felt only like a halved coin. Broken and cold.

“My eyes are up here, boy,” Ilya said.

Aodhán shivered and met Ilya’s eyes. They were turquoise and radiant, accentuated by the deathliness of her face. Her scars ran over the left eye, and just as the stories said, that eye gave off a constant leak of tears.

“This one put up a fight,” One Eye said.

“He looks the type.” Ilya knelt and gave a viper’s smile. “What’s your name?”

Aodhán spat in her face, but instead of flinching, Ilya caught his mouth and twisted hard. She sneered as he squirmed.

“I asked for your name, not your spittle. Do it again and we’ll see how well you spit without a tongue. Now…” Ilya eased her grip. “Tell. Me. Your. Name.”

“Aodhán… Cyneheard.”

Ilya blinked and let his mouth go as if he were diseased. “Small world.” Without looking she accepted her reloaded pistol and cocked the hammer. “Will you serve, Aodhán Cyneheard?”

Aodhán steeled himself to grab at the pistol…

“Aodhán!” shouted a familiar voice.

Mother! Aodhán turned and saw Mother break through the crowd. The sight of her bruised face made him gasp. “Mother!”

“Aodhán!” Mother cried. “Not Aodhán! Please!”

Two of the Sealord’s men pinned Mother to the ground, while a third drew his saber and hovered it over her neck. Aodhán threw himself towards them, only to end up pinned down by a ghostly force, the air around him glittering with sorcery. The Seer remained still, but his amber eyes burned into him like heated rivets.

“Time to decide, Aodhán,” Ilya said. “Serve, and she will live. Continue your recalcitrance, and she and the rest of your kin will hang like those repulsive cod you people are so fond of and I will keelhaul you from here to Hellingsvær to let you think it over.”

Aodhán glanced at the bloodstains by the quay and knew that Ilya wasn’t bluffing. He touched the coin on his wrist, wishing Father were here, yearning to hear his gentle voice.

“Choose.” Ilya shifted her aim to Mother. “Now.”

Aodhán looked Ilya in the eye, wishing looks could kill. “I… will serve.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched, and she carried on down the line.

A week of rough seas passed in a nauseating blur, yet it felt like ten lifetimes, drowning Aodhán with a yearning for his warm bed and the warmer embrace of his family.

Freya. Caolán. Gwenaelle. Etan. Mother.

Time and time again he recalled their faces to keep himself together.

Everyone was packed into a windowless, putrid brig below the waterline. Aodhán huddled in a corner with Aaron and Maria, hugging his knees and tracking the muffled watch bells to mark the time. Nothing like Father’s sloop. Here he saw no horizon, only darkness, and every pitch of the Lacrimae flipped his stomach upside down. After vomiting for the umpteenth time, losing the nameless gruel his captors fed him, he tried his best to console little Maria, whose anxious breaths whispered at his side.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, holding her hand. “We’ll be okay.”

“Aodhán’s right,” Aaron whispered, still clinging to his chipper tone. “We’re getting out of this together.”

“Stop saying that,” said a wiry boy named Sindri, the last prisoner left of a batch plucked from the misty Vargyr Straits. “Just stop.”

“Why should we?” Aaron said.

“Because it’s stupid. It’s not going to be okay.” Sindri sobbed. “They’re going to dunk us again. You’ll see. The braver you are the more they’re likely to do it. I bet you three will be the first they sink.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“Doesn’t matter… You’ll soon feed the Salka. All of us will.”

“Shut up!” Aaron said. “The seasickness has put your stomach between your ears.”

“Not lying. I’ve been here long. So long…”

Aaron nudge Aodhán. “Don’t listen to him. We’ll pull through. Right Maria?”

Maria whimpered. She’d said nothing the whole trip.

The Salka… Aodhán had heard the stories from fishermen in Meenlaragh’s tavern – stories of monsters with an appetite for children who strayed too close to the water. He cleared his throat. “What does the Sealord want?”

Whispers went through the room, along with a few groans.

“The Heart of the Sea,” someone said at last.

Aaron scoffed. “That’s just a fairytale!”

“So were Salka, once,” Sindri murmured.

No one spoke after that. In the silence, Aodhán held Maria and gently hummed the lullabies Mother used to sing. He thumbed Father’s half-coin. Even with his seasickness, his eyelids finally drooped… until a shriek of metal tore through the room.

The Lacrimae was dropping anchor.

The Sealord’s men herded them through cramped, smoky halls and hatchways to the upper deck. Half were drunk. The other half seemed eager to be, and took it out on the captives, kicking and cursing them along their merry way. Aodhán held Maria’s hand, and Aaron held his. They had to stay together. By the time Aodhán reached the main deck he felt sick again, his legs like jelly, but the first gust of fresh sea air was the best thing he’d tasted in his life – until the sunlight blinded him and he faceplanted on the slick deck.

“Get up!” shouted Jax, booting him. “Up! Ups a daisy you sorry little shite!”

Aodhán leaned against the jeer capstan, blinking rapidly in the light. The Lacrimae’s main deck writhed like an overcrowded tidal pool as sailors worked the rigging and furled the black sails. The mainmast looked impossibly tall, and thicker than any tree he’d ever seen. Aodhán had dreamed of seeing a warship up close, but not like this. Blue water glittered from horizon to horizon, dotted by Ilya’s prowling warships.

Ilya… Aodhán felt his blood boil when he saw her standing on the quarterdeck, the blue feather in her tricorn hat dancing as she gazed out to sea with her unscarred eye, a sextant held idly in her hands. She had wrapped a white cloth over her other eye, hiding her tears and scars. He would have given ten years of his life for a flintlock, a blade, or even a hefty rock.

The captives were herded to the starboard side of the main deck, where One Eye – Ilya’s first lieutenant – waited alongside the Seer. The fore topsail filtered the sunlight to an anemic glow.

“All right! Listen up, because I’ll only go over this once.” One Eye planted one boot on a crate and bared his yellow teeth. “You lot have been selected for an important mission. The Sealord’s depending on you, so do it well, else there’s plenty of room in the sea for the whole lot of you.”

The Seer grimaced and lifted an index finger. “Put more accurately, each of you will have an opportunity to earn your way back home.” He nodded to a full helmet-like device and harness attached to a winch system. “This, along with a layer of my power, will protect you from the water. You see, adults are too big for this delicate task, and my sorcery works best on small workers. More reliable, you see. With that, you will be lowered to the bottom, where you will find these.” He pulled a small jar from his fluttering robes. Inside floated a single crimson sphere no larger than a pearl. “For each one you retrieve, you will earn a point towards safe repatriation. The price is ten crimsons. There is a line to pull, see here? It will ring a bell, and hence signal for us to pull you up. Understood?”

No one dared speak.

“Lovely. Then let us begin. Do I have any volunteers?”

Aodhán’s mind raced. Sindri was right: they were going to be sunk to the bottom of the ocean. His breath fled his lungs as memories of near-drowning surfaced. He shrank against the capstan, trying to look as small as possible. He was certain they would pick him, but then one of the older boys lifted his hand; a strapping lad from the Ystradulaed, with beads of colored glass in his fiery hair. After they sealed the windowed helmet on him, the Seer rested both hands on his shoulders and murmured something in lilting gibberish. A shimmering layer of sea-green magic coated the boy. Then he took to the plank and leapt into the frothy green waves.

It felt like an eternity until the bell rang – and when it did, it rang over and over, shrilly. One Eye grimaced.

“Dammit, not again.”

“Raise him up,” the Seer said. “Quickly!”

The men worked the winch, but something yanked back, and suddenly the bell ceased ringing. The Seer exchanged glances with One Eye, then shook his head. The winch resumed. Only the helmet returned. One Eye inspected it and clicked his tongue.

“Bloody hell, they always make it inconvenient…”

“The Salka…” one of the boys whispered. It was all Aodhán could do to keep his breakfast down. It took two men ten minutes to get the boy’s head out. They were only finished tossing it overboard when the Seer cleared his throat.

“All right, we will circle around, give it an hour, and try again. Next volunteer?”

Everyone shrank back.

The Seer pouted. “Straws it is.”

The first batch of divers to pull straws were from Ballytown, a village twenty leagues north of Meenlaragh. It took all day to get through all thirty of them. Not a single crimson. Not a single survivor. Aodhán followed Aaron’s lead and stopped looking at the horrors, focusing on keeping Maria distracted. She had weak lungs, like her father, and was prone to fits of wheezing. Noon came and went, a maggoty biscuit lunch with it, and another group of failures after that.

Fifty lives for nothing.

“Looks like this spot’s a no-gainer.” One Eye looked to the quarterdeck. “Orders, Captain?”

Ilya had ignored the whole ordeal. She now sat at a rosewood table furnished with a stately meal. At the lieutenant’s request she merely sipped blood-red wine from a crystal glass and went back to studying the horizon.

“We shall give it another shot tomorrow,” the Seer said. He gave prisoners a placating smile. “Not to fear. You will all get your chance.”

Their chance came after the fourth sleepless night.

A storm greeted them instead of sunlight. The sea heaved and sprayed like hills and valleys come alive, the clouds overhead roiling and black. Thunder rolled to the song of groaning wood and wind-taut lines. This time the capstan was in use, shirtless men heaving to hoist the foresail. With nothing to hold on to, Aodhán teetered on the slick deck, water sloshing back and forth with every sway. He squeezed Maria’s hand, wishing he was stronger. Even Aaron had stopped smiling, his spirits as waterlogged as their clothes.

“We’ll be okay,” Aodhán said, trying his best to smile.

Aaron murmured something unintelligible, staring blankly at the dark sea, and Maria didn’t smile back.

“All right!” One Eye shouted, his bulk wrapped in an oilskin greatcoat. “Meenlaragh batch, step forward!”

Twenty straws for twenty dives. Aaron picked first and got the longest straw – and looked ashamed for it. The others followed until only two straws remained for Aodhán and Maria. Maria reached for one, then hesitated. Aodhán squeezed her hand. She pressed her lips together and chose the other.

The shortest straw.

No… Aodhán gasped.

Maria looked at him, mouth working, but One Eye stepped between them.

“Looks like you’re going first. Might as well get it over with, eh?”

“No!” Aaron pushed through the others. “Not her!”

One Eye backhanded Aaron, dropping him flat on the deck. The boy struggled to his hands and knees, gasping.

“She’s not well. Please…”

“Not well? Well, better we rid ourselves of her sooner than later. One less mouth to feed.”

Maria kept staring wide-eyed at the straw, all the color gone from her face. Even in the storm Aodhán heard her wheezing. One Eye pulled her to the Seer, who stood untouched by the elements due to a translucent veil of magic. Aodhán felt as if hooks had lodged into his heart and were yanking it against his ribs. Maria, the innocent girl who loved to collect seashells and mend fishermen’s nets. What had she done to deserve this?

The Seer pouted at Maria. “This scrawny thing?”

“She picked first,” One Eye said.

“By my father’s crown, what’s the point?” The Seer tugged at his necklace of eyes, and nodded to the crew, who brought the helmet.

Aaron, still on his knees, began to cry. Aodhán felt frozen solid. But when a man grabbed Maria and tried to force the helmet over her dark curls, she looked straight at him, eyes pleading. The words burned from his throat like lead from a musket.

“I’ll go!”

Everyone froze. Even Aodhán felt stunned by what he’d just said, but now that it was out, he set his jaw and focused on the coin on his wrist. Father told me to be strong. The Seer towered over him, thin eyebrows arched.

“What did you say, boy?”

Aodhán swallowed the urge to deny it. “I said… I’ll go.”

“You volunteer?”

Aodhán glanced at Aaron, who looked about ready to die from fright. He swallowed hard, mouth coppery and dry. “Y-Yes.”

“She pulled the shortest straw. That’s the rule. We’re done with volunteers.”

“To hell with your rules!”

The Seer rolled his eyes. “Get him back in line.”

Aodhán grabbed the Seer’s robes before the men could drag him away. “Please! Let me go! Not her! PLEASE!”

The Seer glowered. “Impudent little -”

“Let him go.” Ilya’s icy voice sliced through the din. She walked down the curved steps from the quarterdeck, ignoring the railing despite the Lacrimae’s jarring motion. She still wore the cloth over her scarred eye. Her other turquoise eye glowed amidst the jewels of flying spray. “If he wants to be a hero, let him.”

“But Ilya -”

“Captain,” Ilya said. “I don’t care if god’s blood runs through your veins, as long as you’re on my ship you will call me by my rank. Understood?”

The Seer grimaced and tugged at his necklace. “Yes, Captain. But this boy is clearly trying to break the rules. We can’t have them being rebellious.”

“Oh?” Ilya clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed until he winced. “Did you not say that you needed the strong? Isn’t the strength of your spells proportional to the willpower of the specimen?”

“W-Well of course.”

“This one has will. More than that little mite, and certainly more than you. His is strong.” Ilya looked down at Aodhán. “Are you not, Aodhán son of Áedán?” The sound of Father’s name shook Aodhán more than the cold. Ilya smiled. “You wonder why I know your father’s name. Bring me some crimsons, and I’ll tell you.”

They had the helmet on Aodhán in two minutes. It reeked of death and salt, and the moment it closed around his neck he felt like he couldn’t breathe – until the Seer’s magic crackled through. The air cleared, every inch of his body feeling as if it were coated in warm, scratchy wool. His head spun as they walked him to the plank and fixed the harness under his armpits. They spun him around so he faced the deck. Aaron held Maria in his arms, tears running freely. Aodhán wished he could apologize. Too late for that. Too late for anything.

Ilya stood with the Seer, arms crossed.

“He’s ready to go,” One Eye said.

“No,” Ilya said, studying Aodhán down the length of her elegant nose. “He looks too light.”

They wrapped two links of chain shot around his ankles. One Eye even looked sorry as he did it.

“I suppose that’s what you get for spitting at her,” he whispered. “At least you’ll sink fast, eh lad? The Void Trench runs deep in these parts.”

What the hell am I doing? Aodhán gulped, then looked to Aaron and Maria again.

“Tip for you,” One Eye said. “Don’t hold your breath, you’ll only black out and that’s just what the Salka want. Easy meat.” His pulled up his eyepatch and winked with a milky white eye. “Just don’t pull the bell unless you’ve got a crimson. Come up emptyhanded and it’s right back down with ya. As many as it takes.”

One Eye spun Aodhán around. The ocean roared thirty feet below. Aodhán remembered all the boys and girls who’d not returned. His legs locked. He was so terrified he could hardly breathe. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ll sink. I’ll drown. I’ll –

“Jump,” Ilya said. “Or shall sick little Maria go first after all?”

Aodhán tasted bile.

“Or is it that you’re terrified of water?” Ilya said. “Did you almost drown when you were little, perhaps? Fallen into a whirlpool while scouting for starfish on the rocks?”

It was the truth, just like Father’s name, but Aodhán had no time to wonder. Boots thumped on the plank behind him, and Ilya whispered into his ear.

“Well, you know what they say about the fears you don’t face…”

Her boot drove into his buttocks, and into the depths he plunged.

Dark water swallowed Aodhán, so cold it froze his screams in his throat. Suddenly there was no wind, no flapping sails, no groaning wood or rolling thunder. Only the tinny sound of his own gasping breaths – and total darkness. Water gripped every inch of his body, the pressure mounting by the second as the chain shot dragged him down.

I’m going to drown.

The thought ricocheted through his head like a musket ball fired into a church bell. Suddenly he was little again, on the shore back home: a bright star fish, slick rock, waves ripping his feet out, salty water burning down his throat… and Father’s arms around him.

This time there was no one to save him.

Aodhán’s lungs constricted. His ears popped and his eyes felt like someone was hammering them from the inside out. Drowning in darkness, far from home. He groped for the bell line, only for deep currents to clobber him. One moment he was upside down, the next sideways, and then his helmet grated against unseen cliffs. Something touched his foot, mushy and hand-like. He stifled a scream – and gagged when his back struck the sea’s rocky bottom. The pressure doubled again. The helmet groaned, and water began to bead through the cracks.

He gripped the bell line.

Maria.

The thought of Maria in his place filled his chest with burning lead.

I didn’t do this for me, Aodhán thought, and with that he remembered to breathe – and remembered Father’s words. The sea has protected us for generations. It is our lifeblood. The sea is not evil. Only those who seek to tame it. Aodhán set his jaw and touched Father’s coin.

He would find those crimsons. As many as it took.

Aodhán pushed to his feet – and felt the Seer’s encasing magic hum. The chill and pressure receded, and a soft greenish glow emanated around him, illuminating a craggy slope furrowed with shark-fin outcroppings. He recalled Ilya’s words. The Seer’s spell was only as strong as its bearer’s will. Maria, he thought. Maria. Aaron. Mother. Father. Each name bolstering his resolve. The pressure receded. Even the air in the helmet tasted fresh.

Barren rocks, and beyond, oblivion. Aodhán tried not to think about what lurked out there. Instead, he looked across the slope – and caught a glimpse of crimson light. He blinked and it was gone, but in its place lay the wreck of a brigantine, sagging on an outcropping, wood and ropes dangling with ghostly seagrass. Aodhán dragged his weighted feet until he stood at the gaping hole in its port side.

Don’t go in there, part of him warned, recalling Father’s lessons. Shipwrecks belong to the dead. To trespass is to join them.

Aodhán touched the coin and waded in anyway.

The hold was dark and strewn with crates and barnacle-crusted cannons. The chain shot dragged over the rotting floorboards, leaving jagged trails in the algae. No corpses. No crimsons. Nothing. Aodhán looked at his feet. Red flashed between the deck planks, and then the floor shattered.

The shot yanked Aodhán down, churning up grit in a brown-green storm. Something jagged pricked his back. He groped around and felt a chain. He held fast and waited for the detritus to clear… and found himself eye to eye with a skull. He screamed and tumbled backwards. Red painted everything. Skeletons along the walls, their flesh and clothes mostly gone and their lingering hair hovering weightlessly. Crabs and octopi and wormlike things clung to the corpses. Chains and shackles linked them together.

Slaves, Aodhán thought numbly. This ship’s a Garamantine Slaver.

And nestled at the heart of the ruin, encased in a sphere of silvery membranes, lay a pile of glowing crimsons. It took Aodhán’s breath away. He drove his hand through the membrane, finding it soft and pliable, and picked up a crimson. Like a pearl, but it pulsed as if alive…

A current hammered the wreck. The corpses swayed, heads lolling, chains clinking. Cracks shot through the walls, and a deep, muffled groan shook everything. Aodhán dropped the crimson into a bag and scooped the others up as fast as he could. Five… Ten… Twenty… He stopped counting, and once finished he pulled himself out by his harness cable and made for the exit – only for a whirlwind of sediment to blind him.

A high-pitched shriek stabbed his ears. Something grabbed his throat, and through the clouds he saw blazing red eyes. He lifted his hands to defend himself, coin catching the crimson light. The eyes jerked back, and then a pulse of the Seer’s magic blasted from his helmet and shattered everything around him. The wreck tilted. Aodhán jumped free, but the current of the plunging wreck dragged him down. He groped at the jagged cliff. Blood clouded from his hands.

The shriek came again. Others joined it.

Aodhán yanked the bell cord.

The cable yanked him up faster than he thought possible. Everything blurred in whirls of darkness. The shrieks followed, and when he glanced down he saw red pinpricks of eyes. A shadow joined it, long and coiling. Light bloomed from above. For a brief instant Aodhán saw a gaping maw of razor teeth, and then he was in the open air, slapping against the slimy hull of the Lacrimae.

“Fire!” someone shouted.

Muskets and swivel guns roared. Aodhán hugged the cable as projectiles howled past and blasted into the water. He took the first hand that reached for him, spilled onto the deck, and found himself hugging Ilya’s boots. Her mouth twitched, and then she nudged him aside and kicked an iron-plated barrel into the ocean. An explosion threw water as high as the masts, and then all was silent but for wind and waves.

“That did it,” One Eye said, peering over the side. “Maybe even killed it.”

“Were it so easy…” Ilya turned on her heel. “They’ll be back. Lay the ship on the starboard tack, and trim the sails. Keep a double watch and have those depth charges ready. Signal likewise to the fleet. We’ll outpace them if we can and bloody them if we don’t.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Ilya grimaced and touched her stomach, then looked down at Aodhán. “You’ve returned with more limbs than I expected. And here I had my surgeon all spirited up. You better have something to show for it.”

Aodhán felt a wave of anger, but he had no breath for it. He glared and shoved the bag at her. The crimson light within blushed Ilya’s face. Her eye widened, and her lips curled as she handed the bag to the Seer, whose jaw went slack as he counted.

“T-Thirty,” he rasped. “Thirty crimsons!”

“And you said that many never happens.”

“Not that we’ve recorded.” The Seer lifted his chin “There’s much about them we don’t know. Most of our specimens spoil prematurely.” He licked his lips. “My father will be very pleased.”

“Then he better pay accordingly for his golden pleasure.” Ilya extended her hand to Aodhán, smirking. “Up with you, Aodhán. You’re alive. Act like it.”

Aodhán hated that smile, but he accepted her hand anyway. When she pulled him up he teetered and had to steady himself on the rail. The other children were still on the deck, all gawking as if he’d grown three heads. Maria and Aaron huddled amidst them, speechless. Aodhán chanced a smile even though he felt like throwing up again.

“No more dives today,” Ilya said to her men. “Double rations for the divers, and fresh straw for their cells. As for you…” She gripped Aodhán’s shoulder. “You will attend dinner with the big fish tonight.”

Aodhán looked to his friends, and for that Ilya’s grip doubled.

“That’s not an invitation. That’s an order.”

The splendor of the captain’s mess numbed Aodhán even to his seasickness. Gold and jewels encrusting everything, from the chairs to the oil lamps to the silverware on the giant rosewood table. A golden chandelier glittered above, swaying with the waves, and along the walls were paintings and maps and ceremonial blades. More wealth in a single room than a thousand Meenlaraghs put together. It made him feel even smaller at the table, and with only Ilya and the Seer in attendance, he felt small enough already.

The array of food was beyond dizzying. Lobster. Prawns. Crab. Salmon. Herring. Squid. Shark. All in garlic, butter, and fresh herbs. The bounty of the sea, and yet Ilya touched none of it, opting for roasted pork, steaming as she sliced into it using an elegant curved blade with a jade handle. Behind her, taking up two-thirds of the wall, hung a battered crimson flag bearing in black the image of a diving Ferruvian hawk. The hawk was said to manifest the deity of Ferruvia, Ilya’s distant homeland. Aodhán watched, plate empty.

“You would think you could get some good mutton along those shores,” Ilya said, her one visible eye narrowed to a slit. “All these lands are cursed to fester in the stench of fish.”

“A seafarer who disdains the sea’s plenty.” The Seer leaned back in his seat, nursing a glass of amber Lavellan wine. “I’d be surprised, if it weren’t coming from you, Baroness of Ferruvia.”

“Your wit is as dull as your charm.” Ilya poured herself fourth glass of brandy from a crystal decanter. “Is that all you’re here to do? I thought the Sealord assigned his spawn to ensure the success of the hunts, not the vexation of captains.”

“Yes, yes. I sent the missive to Cridhe Uchdranis an hour ago. My father is ecstatic.”

“Ecstatic.” Ilya rotated her glass, never spilling. “I wonder if that looks any different than his usual constipated disposition.” When the Seer choked on his wine, she smiled at him. “Oh but I’m happy he is happy. That means more fortune for me. And it bodes well for you, too.”

The Seer lifted his pointy chin. “At this rate I’ll be the first Seer to bring back enough crimsons for a proper ritual. And when we retrieve the Heart of the Sea, I will -”

Ilya cleared her throat, and the Seer glanced at Aodhán before hiding his vexation behind an insipid chuckle. Aodhán knew at once that there had to be truth to the legends after all.

“To put it bluntly,” the Seer went on, “my brothers will be very jealous.”

“Keep eyes on the back of your head, then,” Ilya said. “Jealousy breeds contempt, and contempt has a habit of sprouting daggers from sleeves.”

“A Seer sees all. I am not worried.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to be, my friend.” Ilya’s mouth twitched, then she looked at Aodhán. “I didn’t invite you here to stare. Eat. You earned it.”

So Aodhán ate, and found that even seasick it was the best food he’d ever tasted. Besides the meats, there was buttered cabbage and potatoes, stewed cauliflower, and a plum pudding that brought tears to his eyes… but then he thought of his friends down below and the maggoty biscuit they would be eating. What would they think, knowing he was eating this? The food went sour. He stopped eating, hoping it wasn’t a test, hating the silence and the sound of chewing as neither of his hosts spoke. When the Seer stood up at last, Aodhán whispered a silent thanks to the gods.

“A decadent meal, as always, my compliments to…?”

“Bawson,” Ilya said. “Three months aboard and you think you’d at least remember the cook’s name.”

The Seer put on a quivering smile. “I will return to my meditations. Come the morrow, we will dive again.” He winked at Aodhán. “Until then, rest well, little fish boy.”

Ilya waited until the door shut behind the Seer. “I hate that man. Though calling him a man is a stretch. Always vying for power, even while he shuffles and lisps like a sycophantic eunuch in a Marish court. A word of advice: never trust a Seer. They’re all the blood of the Sealord, and the Sealord is a greedy viper. Like me.”

Aodhán stared at his plate. The residue of dinner looked like blood, reminding him of the boy Ilya had killed on the quay.

“Look at me when I speak.”

Aodhán glared into her turquoise eye.

“You hate me too, but at least you show it. Honest hate is something I can trust, unlike the false smiles of so many men I’ve had to kill.” Ilya leaned back in her seat, glass held elegantly. “You have questions for me?”

The table didn’t lack for weapons. Aodhán glanced at the carving knife.

“Not the best time for that,” Ilya said. “Someone tried that trick on me once. Spoiled the whole table after I opened his throat. Which do you think is longer, that knife or my saber?”

Aodhán swallowed hard. He thought about the Heart of the Sea, then touched the coin on his wrist. “My father…”

“He didn’t tell you about me?”

Aodhán shook his head.

“I see.” Ilya’s free hand gripped her jade knife, then relaxed. “I know him from long ago, before you were born. Let’s just say we sailed together, once, when the world was a simpler place and the Sealord had yet to taint it with his tentacles and incestuous spawn.” She sipped her brandy and rolled her left shoulder. “Where is he now?”

“He left.” Aodhán bit his lip. “A year ago. He left on his ship, the Cormorant. Said he was going somewhere important.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Good. Life at sea is trouble. Men do their sons a favor by keeping them out of it.”

“Do you… know where he is?”

Ilya held his gaze for a moment. An errant tear escaped her eye cloth. “I do not.”

She’s lying. Aodhán sensed it like a ball of heated shot resting on his sternum. He almost said it, but Ilya finished her drink and spoke offhandedly.

“Now for the real reason I invited you. Thirty crimsons. That’s three lives.”

Enough for Maria and Aaron and himself. They could go home. Aodhán thought of seeing Mother and his siblings, of sleeping in his warm bed, and of collecting shells with a smiling Maria. It almost made him laugh, but then he looked at Father’s coin and felt his stomach twist. “What about the others?”

“They will dive, just as you did. Most will die. Maybe all, in which case there are plenty enough to recruit along the coast. Perhaps one or two will prove to be as strong as you. Why should you care? You and your friends can go home to your mothers. I can have you on a ship tomorrow.”

The chance dangled before Aodhán’s eyes. He ached to take it. But then he thought of Sindri, whimpering in the dark, and all the others. Innocent boys and girls who would feed the Salka. What would Father do? Aodhán knew at once. He felt a fool for it, yet the idea twisted through him like the unrelenting chill of the ocean.

“Well?” Ilya leaned forward. “Is it really so hard to choose freedom?”

“Sindri,” Aodhán rasped.

“Pardon?”

“There’s a boy named Sindri. He’s from Vargyr, but his parents died when you came.” Aodhán looked up. “Can he go home with Maria and Aaron?”

Ilya’s eye shone. “Instead of you?”

“Instead of me.”

“Why?” Ilya cocked her head, but Aodhán was speechless. “Those are brave words, Aodhán. Braver than I thought you’d be. But do you really know what that it means to stay?”

Aodhán felt his legs trembling. He nodded anyway.

“Done.” Ilya extended her right hand. When Aodhán stared at it, a gentle smile wrinkled her face. “You had best get used to shaking hands with devils. Your father certainly did.”

And what a cold hand it was.

The next morning the Lacrimae overtook the Bountiful Feast like a wolf pouncing on an overfat goat. The merchant ship’s captain, a grizzled blob of a man who relied on his twelve sons to do the work, lasted three seconds before caving to Ilya’s gunpoint demands.

“To which port are you bound?” she asked, her scarred face bared for all to see.

“P-Port Quessar, to offload grain,” the captain said.

“Not anymore. You will sail for Meenlaragh. You know where that is?”

“Y-Yes, but -”

“I don’t care how inconvenienced you will be. You will take your passengers there immediately in the name of the Sealord.” Ilya clasped the man’s shoulder like a friend, letting him stare long and hard at her scarred face. “Just keep in mind that I will visit Meenlaragh myself when this is over. If those three aren’t there, happy and healthy and untouched, I will know whom to look for, and on whom the gulls will have a bountiful feast. Understood?”

The captain’s courage turned to bilge, and Ilya nodded to Aodhán, who stood on the deck with his friends. Maria clung to him like a leech, sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” Aodhán said to Maria. “I’ll come back. I promise.”

Maria whimpered something against his chest. Aaron stood by, arms crossed.

“You’d better,” Aaron said. “She won’t forgive you otherwise. Neither will I, got it?”

Aodhán managed a smile. “Got it.” He stroked Maria’s hair, and looked to Sindri, who stood a few meters back, looking at his bare feet. “Take care of him. Ask my mother. She’ll know what to do.”

Sindri looked up at last, tears streaming down his face. “Why do this for me?”

Aodhán battled back another urge to change his mind. “Because no one else can.”

Aaron sighed. “You really think you can do it?”

Aodhán felt queasy at the thought, but he nodded, trying to look brave when he knew his idea was more stupidity than bravery.

“You’re crazier than your father,” Aaron said. “Guess it’s in the blood. A Cyneheard always gets into trouble.” He cracked a smile, and they both shared a nervous laugh and clasped hands. “You’re coming home. That’s what I’ll tell them. You better not make me a liar.”

“I promise,” Aodhán said. “You’re the last person I want for an enemy.”

Aaron laughed again, harder this time, but Aodhán knew he was just trying to hold back tears. As he watched his friends board the trading vessel, he wondered if he’d made another promise he couldn’t keep. When the Bountiful Feast pushed off, and he heard Maria call out, waving from its forecastle, he saw his jaw. A hand clasped his shoulder.

“Do not cry,” Ilya said. “This would have happened either way.” She gripped him harder when he flinched. “Yes. You’re a prize catch. Even the Seer thinks so. Why would I set you free? I never intended to. That should make you feel much better, no?”

Aodhán’s mouth went dry. “But you said -”

“I lied. That’s what people like me do.” Ilya propelled him towards the winch, where Jax and One Eye were preparing the harness. “You dive in ten minutes, or someone else goes for you. Chop, chop. The Sealord’s an impatient man, and I have his nectar.”

Heat rushed to Aodhán’s face. He whirled, a curse ready on his lips, but he thought better of it. In five minutes he was on the plank. The other children gathered to watch. None of them said a word, but when he looked back at them, he felt their miasma of hope and terror.

If he failed, one of them was next.

“Do I have to encourage you again?” Ilya asked.

Aodhán ignored her. Instead, he pointed to Ethelred, daughter of the man Ilya had shot in Meenlaragh. “She goes next.”

Ilya smiled. “Deal.”

Aodhán stared down at the hungry waves. This time, he jumped.

Dive after dive passed in a blur of cold and terror and pain, but for each one, Aodhán forced Ilya to eat her own words. Ethelred and five others were homebound within two days, and the exodus kept growing. The children no longer watched his dives in silence. They cheered instead, and not even One Eye or Jax could shut them up.

You’re giving them hope, Aodhán told himself as he plunged into another dive.

That alone made the darkness bearable.

The Seer chose the locations based on whatever his powers told him, but once in the depths, it was all Aodhán. Before each dive he picked out whom he wanted to save, and every time he felt stronger for it. The depths of the sea couldn’t touch him. Even when the monsters came, he fled before they reached him. Ilya’s men dropped heavy iron depth charges, enchanted by the Seer to explode in proximity, to ward them off.

“You’re depleting my inventory,” Ilya said one night, as they dined in her cabin. “You really think you can save everyone?”

Aodhán nodded, eating his lavish fill – he would take every advantage she gave him.

“And if you die tomorrow?”

“I won’t,” Aodhán said. “You better find another merchant ship.”

Ilya blinked, and then laughed – a light singsong that for a moment made her beautiful. But it quickly died when she leaned forward and sneered. “I’ll let you keep sending off the weak ones, but I’ll keep the strong. I need a few spares in case you return without a torso.”

Aodhán held her gaze, surprised he would even dare. “How much for the strong ones?”

“More than you can pay.”

We’ll see about that.

The weeks passed, with more crimsons than Aodhán could count. Between the dizzying depths, the shrieks of the monsters, and scrapes with death in wrecks and underwater caves, he lost track of the times he thought he would die. Yet even that became numb to him. All that mattered was beating Ilya at her own game.

For her part, Ilya treated him well. He got his own cabin, hammock, even new clothes and a place of honor amongst the crew. Jax and a few others still mocked him, but they couldn’t hide their wonder whenever he came up from a dive, nor could they stifle the stories circulating amongst the crew – that Aodhán had the blood of Maerskoi, the fabled goddess of the sea. Only the Seer remained aloof. That hairless man reminded him of Tymon, the old tax collector back home, analyzing but always betraying nothing.

“Don’t trust him,” Ilya told him. “The way you’re performing, he’s thinking of taking you back to Cridhe Uchdranis to present to his lord father. And once the Sealord smells your usefulness your service will be for life.”

That kept Aodhán up night after night. He took those moments to stand on deck, alone but for the night watch. He’d long since gotten his sea legs, and the Lacrimae’s motion no longer made him sick. It made him feel closer to Father. With calm seas and cloudless skies the stars went on forever, mirrored by the sea. He wondered if Aaron and Maria were looking at those same stars. Would he ever go home? Or would Mother stare out to sea every morning, forever, waiting for him just like she waited for Father?

I will. Aodhán leaned on the rail and touched Father’s coin. I will come home. Like you. You’re coming home too, right?

In the silence, he felt eyes on him and heard something splash in the water below, but when he looked he saw only ripples and the pale refection of the moon.

On the eve of the equinox, the day everyone would be celebrating back home, everything changed. Aodhán woke to find Ilya towering over him. She said nothing. He knew the drill and followed. The crew was working like a hive of bees, preparing charges and cannon and distributing pikes. Ilya led him into the lantern-lit halls of her quarters, to a heavy iron-banded door with four locks and twice as many guards. Ilya opened it with a set of keys she kept under her shirt. Crimson light bled out as it opened silently on oiled hinges.

The room bulged with artifacts, from swords and flags to a large painting of a smiling young woman Aodhán realized was Ilya – young, unscarred, in a vibrant dress before a tropical seascape. But most of all it was the enormous glass tank that drew him in. Crimsons lay inside, piled on a bed of sand. Hundreds. Maybe even a thousand.

Ilya waited until her men left and shut the door. Then she removed her tricorn hat and studied the crimsons. “The fruits of your labor.”

The months had passed in a blur. Aodhán could hardly believe he’d found so many. “What are they?”

“I think you know. You are your father’s son, after all.”

“Eggs.” A chill crept down Aodhán’s spine. “They’re eggs.” And I stole them.

“Correct. The spawn of the Maighdeann-Ròin.”

“The Salka?”

“Their name in the Old Tongue,” Ilya said, crossing her arms as she studied the eggs. “Salka is too tame a name. They are monsters of the deep. Deceitful, wretched things with pretty faces that sing pretty songs before they drown you. They’ve been the scourge of the Arrandahl Sea for centuries. Thankfully their end is at hand, their era dying like all their mythical counterparts of ages past.”

“Why do you want their eggs?”

“Why?” Ilya lifted her chin. “Salka eggs are a rare commodity. A single one is worth more than this ship. Imagine how much wealth you’ve plucked from the depths. Your hands have touched more riches than even the Sealord commands.”

Aodhán’s fingers tingled as he stared at the countless eggs.

A padded chair was bolted down to the floor in front of the tank. Ilya sat in it and folded one long leg over the other, resting her clasped hands on her lap. “Such a sight. Their value is derived from their applications. They are reputed to have many properties for healing, magical power, perhaps even immortality. The Sealord wants all of those and more.”

Despite his fear, Aodhán asked, “And what do you want?”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. She calmly untied her eye cloth. Her tearful eye glittered. “The Salka gave me this. A gift to remember them by, besides the death of my husband and unborn child. The Sealord may not know it, but I’m not interested in gold or power…” She touched the glass. Her other hand pressed on her belly, fingers tensed. “No, I only want to put an end to them. I want them to languish in the history books and fireside stories where they belong. Their era is over, and since they will not go quietly, I will drag them out. Those vermin.”

The rage filling Ilya’s voice made Aodhán step back. The movement made Ilya blink, as if she’d forgotten where she was. She smirked.

“Why am I telling you this? You should understand what sort of monster you’re working for. After all, it takes a monster to slay another. I am using you to my own ends, just as I am using that limp-wristed Seer and his arrogant father. This isn’t an age of heroes. All the heroes are at the bottom of the sea feeding crabs.” Ilya let go of her belly, glowered at the eggs, then marched to the other side of the room. A forest of trinkets hung on the wall. She gently sorted through them. “If you succeed, today’s dive is the last you will ever have to do. You will go home. You will win.”

“More eggs?”

“You know what we want. That fool of a Seer blurted it out.”

“The Heart of the Sea…” Aodhán bit his lip. “Are you lying?”

“I don’t ask you to trust my word. I will show you.”

Ilya plucked something off the wall and extended it on her open palm. A leather bracelet, weathered by salt and time, bearing half of a silver coin. Aodhán felt as if lightning had struck him. He stumbled back and fell over Ilya’s chair. Father’s bracelet. He worked his mouth, but no words came. It felt as if his throat were filled with molten lead. Father had sworn to never take it off. Seeing it now, Aodhán knew what that meant.

“I am sorry,” Ilya said. “I didn’t wish to tell you, but at this point in the game, you deserve to know.” She knelt, offering the bracelet. The light of the crimsons set her tearful eye afire. “The Salka killed your father. Drowned him off the coast of Royne.”

Aodhán wished it was a lie, but looking into Ilya’s eyes, he felt nothing but the cold, raking claws of truth. He blinked tears and accepted the bracelet, but it made him feel no closer to Father, only emptier, so alone he wanted to crawl into a ball and cease to exist. Father was dead. Lost at sea. Drowned by the Salka, never to return home…

“Aodhán,” Ilya said.

He looked at her again. Her face softened, looking a little more like the happy young woman in the painting.

“When I first set out to sea, I was convinced that every man on it saw women as a curse, as property to keep in kitchens or in beds. Your father was the first to prove me wrong. I pretended to be a man back then, aboard the merchant marine. It was the only way. Your father found me out, and he kept my secret. Not for favors. But because he was a good man.” Ilya gripped Aodhán’s shoulder. “He didn’t deserve to die like he did. I am truly sorry, Aodhán.”

It was all Aodhán could do not to cry.

“The Salka took something from both of us. We share that pain.” Ilya offered her other hand. “Will you help me kill them?”

Kill. All his life Aodhán had been taught to never hurt others, let alone kill. Those lessons felt stupid now. The Salka didn’t care about morals. This was the sea. Nothing he’d learned back home applied to this dark world of waves and monsters. And in his heart, as he gazed into Ilya’s eyes, he felt a warmth he knew too well. I shouldn’t feel like this towards her. She’s using me. I shouldn’t…

And yet, he found himself forcing words up his dry, burning throat.

“When can I dive?”

Ilya smiled. “As soon as you wish.”

Aodhán stepped onto the deck to the roar of cannon and the thump of enchanted depth charges. The ocean looked like it was being torn apart. All twelve of Ilya’s warships circled the dive spot, a span of black, heaving ocean beneath a thundery sky. He couldn’t see the Salka, but he heard their high-pitched screams between the blasts. The Sealord’s fleet had spent thirty minutes bombarding the area, softening them up as One Eye put it. Meanwhile the Seer layered on three spells so heavy that Aodhán felt his heart palpitate with their power.

“These are more potent wards than the others,” the Seer said as he worked, fingers plucking as he weaved threads of magic only he could see. “You are a remarkable specimen. The sheer concentration of magic would kill a weaker host. You will need it where you’re going.” He showed his teeth in the first sincere smile Aodhán had seen from him. “Take the Heart of the Sea, and not only will you be free, you will be a legend among gods and men.”

Freedom. Fame. Neither mattered. Aodhán stormed onto the plank and glared into the water, unshrinking even as depth charges slapped him with spray. He touched his wrist, Father’s bracelet now alongside his own. “Is it right below?”

“Directly,” the Seer said from the rail. “My triangulations are exact.”

“How far down?”

“Farther than anyone has ever gone.”

And how many Salka in between? Aodhán shifted his feet. Two chain shots were easy now, like feathers. “More.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“More weights!” Aodhán turned, teeth clenched. “The faster I get there, the quicker we end this, right?”

The Seer blinked. “I… I see.” He mouthed something under his breath and waved to One Eye. “More shot for Aodhán!”

One Eye paled. “Has he lost his mind?”

“That, or he’s found his courage.”

Aodhán breathed deep as they tied four more shots around his ankles. When all was ready, he didn’t wait for Ilya to speak. Her approving gaze was enough. They had a deal, and he would make her keep it. He stepped off the plank and plunged into the roaring, bubbly darkness of the war-torn sea.

The piercing shrieks of the Salka blared all around him, matched by the thumps of depth charges. In the chaos he only caught glimpses – red eyes, teeth, fins, and clouds of purple blood. They threw themselves at him and his lifeline to the surface, but the Seer’s magic kept them back, pulsing out in green shockwaves. Breathe, Aodhán told himself, closing his eyes as the deep swallowed him. Breathe. You can do this. Just breathe.

He gazed into the depths – and saw light.

Spires of stone and coral rose from oblivion, robed in a thousand colors and too organized to be natural. A city of spires. It was falling to pieces, torn by the heavier charges. At their heart lay a great field of emerald sea grass dotted with coral the size of ancient trees, and a domed structure made of pure, crystalline material. That’s it. As Aodhán neared, the Seer’s sorcery lashed out and sliced the top off like a melon. Crimson light exploded free. Within lay a blazing sphere many times larger than any Salka egg.

The Heart of the Sea.

Salka were shrieking from all directions, but once more the Seer’s cocoon of magic pulsed outwards, silencing the wave of monsters at once. More would come, and if Aodhán recalled correctly, the Seer’s wards could only withstand a few more waves.

I have to hurry.

Aodhán touched down. The Heart waited, protected by layers of coral and diaphanous membranes. It was larger than his head and throbbed like a beating heart. Aodhán drew an enchanted knife the Seer had given him and tore into the barrier. The Seer’s green sorcery flared like lightning. The Heart blazed hotter in response, a cherry red that blossomed out like a flower and stopped the Seer’s green. More shrieks rose from the depths.

Faster, Aodhán told himself. They’re coming. Faster!

Aodhán screamed and put all of his strength into a stab. The crimson shield flared, then shattered. He slashed through the membranes and reached the Heart. It burned to the touch, but he cradled it anyway, setting his jaw against the wrongness it sent ripping through his chest. He yanked the bell line, and the cable pulled him out of the dome.

I did it… Aodhán smiled. I did it!

He looked up – and saw one of the stone towers plunging towards him.

The tower snagged the cable and sank past into an abyss, yanking Aodhán with it. Magic flared, but not enough. The cable snapped. NO! The shot pulled Aodhán down. He reached up, but the other end of the line was a hundred feet too high. A sudden current slammed him sideways into a rock face. The impact stole the air from his lungs. The Heart fell from his grasp – and the Seer’s glittering magic left with it. It was like watching a swarm of fish chasing after a decoy. The sorcery enveloped the Heart in a shimmering cocoon, and then, linking to the dissipating magic still imbued in the cut cable, yanked the Heart upwards.

“No…” Aodhán rasped, feeling the pressure and cold rise as the magic left his body. “NO!”

There was no stopping it. The Heart faded until all he saw were the distant flashes of the Seer’s cruel depth charges – and a swarm of glowing red eyes. Aodhán tried to drag his legs, but the shot was too heavy. He tore at the shackles, screaming, but all he got for it was broken fingernails. The Salka circled around him in a wall of fins, claws, and humanoid faces. I’m going to die. Water began to pierce the helmet. His limbs numbed. Soon the pressure would crumple him like a wad of paper. A sob tore up his throat. Mother…

Something knocked Aodhán on his side. Slimy seawater sloshed into his eyes. He waited for the sting of claws and teeth, but never came. He opened his eyes and almost gasped in a mouthful of water.

A lone Salka floated between him and the others, arms outstretched. It had a female face, round and childish, though with razor teeth set in a determined snarl and blood-red eyes slitted like a cat’s. She was smaller than the rest, with hair of algae green and urchin purple adorned with beads of colored stone, the skin of her upper humanoid half silvery while her lower half, sleek tail and sharklike fins, whipped the sand.

Aodhán had never seen a Salka so clearly. It was nothing like the stories.

The other Salka circled in a blurring mass too swift to pick out details, but they held back, giving the other space even as they shrieked with displeasure.

Why is she protecting me? Aodhán’s helmet groaned, and his exposed body began to throb with agony. The Seer’s magic was almost gone. For this to be his last sight, a Salka standing between him and a tide of vengeful teeth… I don’t want to die. The Salka made a sweeping gesture, and a strong current tore through, parting the other Salka. In the same instant her tale whipped into his chains and shattered the links. Aodhán felt her grip his arm, and suddenly he was racing through the water at a Salka’s breakneck speed. She yanked him over a cliff. She’s taking me down. She’s going to kill me. Like Father…

The thought came and went as he suffocated. Even that seemed impossible to care about now.

Cold. So cold…

The Salka glanced back at him, eyes wide, then changed directions, pulling him through a small crack in the cliff. The instant Aodhán’s head went through he saw the other Salka pound into the outside, too large to enter. Their shrieks stabbed his brain. The young Salka bared her razor teeth at the others and made a pronged gesture with her right hand, but when she looked at Aodhán, her face softened. He couldn’t believe it.

She saved me?

Then the last of the Seer’s magic flaked away, and the helmet’s window shattered.

Aodhán dreamed of waking up in his bed to the heartwarming chaos of his siblings chasing each other through the old house. The aroma of porridge and nutmeg drifted from the kitchen, and the singsong of Mother’s laughter tugged at his heart.

“Aodhán! Breakfast!”

“I’m coming,” Aodhán heard himself say. He rolled out of bed, but instead of floorboards, he felt water. A hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him down… and then he was staring at the beady eyes of an octopus sitting on his chest.

Aodhán screamed, bubbles spewing from his mouth. He scrambled backwards against the cavern wall, holding what little breath he had left. The Salka. The cave. He had to get out! The water… Aodhán blinked when he saw his helmet. It lay on the ground, its glass shattered. Am I still dreaming?

Sea creatures filled the cavern, which was lit by a gentle sapphire glow. Little blue fish gave off the light, bobbing back and forth as they watched him. Crabs and octopi and fish of a hundred kinds boxed him in like curious children. And in their midst, tail curled up in a look of repose, waited the Salka.

Aodhán pressed himself against the wall. His lungs screamed for air.

What do I do?

His world began to spin. The Salka cocked her head, then gestured, pointing at her own mouth. When Aodhán stared, she frowned and swam towards him, the sea creatures parting. Aodhán yelped out precious air and drew his knife. The Salka looked at the little blade, rolled her eyes, and gently slapped her muscular tail into his gut. Aodhán doubled over, gasping involuntarily, but instead of water he tasted air.

What? Aodhán held his breath for a moment, then tried again. Air. Yet when he exhaled, bubbles came out. How? The Salka flicked him on the forehead with a clawed finger. She pointed at herself, then him. Only then did he feel the static encasing his body, the shiver of power that made the Seer’s seem like a cheap imitation.

Magic.

Father had said that Salka possessed ancient sorcery, but that, like most stories, had seemed unreal. Aodhán stared at the Salka for what felt like the first time. Despite all of her sharp edges and predatory grace, he realized she was oddly beautiful.

She really saved my life…

The fish pressed in, and a few crabs began to crawl up Aodhán’s legs. The Salka shooed them, then looked at Aodhán expectantly. He looked into her eyes, wishing he could ask why. He tried to mouth the word. The Salka cocked her head, then nodded and showed her teeth. An attempt at a smile? Between those teeth, the shark fins, the razor sharp spines jutting from back and elbows, Salka were indeed killer predators.

But this one wasn’t the monster he’d expected.

What should I do? How do I even…?

The Salka rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, pointed at Father’s bracelets, then back at herself. Aodhán blinked. She knew him? When she pointed at him and waited, Aodhán knew she was asking if he was who she thought he was. He nodded slowly. The Salka’s face shifted into something that looked like sorrow.

“Why?” Aodhán said, forcing his tone out with the bubbles. “Why did you save me?”

The Salka’s face lit up with understanding. She coiled her tail around, showing the portion near the fins. Four jagged scars ran down her side. They reminded Aodhán of the scars he’d seen on a beached whale. Someone tried to catch her. Aodhán nodded that he understood. The Salka pointed at his bracelets again, this time gesturing at her tail as if to yank something out. Aodhán felt tingles creep all over. Father freed her. He saved her life. And yet…

The Salka smiled again, but all he saw were sharp teeth – and the vision of Father drowning. Suddenly he was screaming.

“WHY?”

The Salka flinched. Aodhán didn’t even care that the Salka didn’t understand his bubbling scream.

“You drowned him! He helped you and your kind killed him!”

The Salka shrank back, as did the other creatures, but her shock quickly turned to a razor-toothed snarl. She grabbed Aodhán’s arm and pulled him kicking and screaming out of the cave. The other Salka were gone. The bioluminescent fish kept pace, lighting the underwater world as they plunged deeper. The sandy bottom appeared. Aodhán lost track of how long the Salka pulled him. It took everything he had just to keep his mind together. When she finally stopped, Aodhán was ready to apologize, but what he saw stole the words from his throat.

A wreck lay perfectly upright, lodged on a patch of jagged shale. Barnacles and luminous seagrass gilded it, giving it an aura of greens, blues, and purple. A single deck, twelve-gun sloop.

Just like… No, it can’t be!

The Salka waited, her face scrunched with discomfort. She took Aodhán’s hand and guided him forward. He felt numb all over as memories bubbled to the surface of his mind – of days spent with Father, and nights spent waiting to see his ship’s lanterns on the horizon. The sloop’s masts were shattered, but her quarterdeck still had its railings and helm. The numbness turned to pain when he reached the bow. There, beneath the bowsprit, was a figurehead of a cormorant. Someone had brushed it clean of algae. It still had its paint, and still had the errant stroke of brown Aodhán had mistakenly dragged over the white of its belly two years ago. He touched it, heart in his throat.

Father’s ship, the Cormorant.

Aodhán dragged his hand along the slimy hull, feeling close to Father yet impossibly far. Holes dotted the port side, splintered wood turning to rot, all above the waterline. Smaller holes pockmarked the railings. Cannon fire. Round and grapeshot and canister. The Cormorant hadn’t been sunk by the Salka. She’d been sunk by a warship.

Ilya had lied.

She killed him. Aodhán staggered back, trembling and sick.

The Salka circled around the wreck. She paused by every patch of seagrass, touching each one. Magic glittered from her delicate fingers, and the grass flourished twice over. Father had saved her, and now she tended to his ship as one would lay flowers at a grave. What have I done? Aodhán fell to his knees, wishing the ocean would crush him. But the ocean spared him. And the Salka, when she returned, touched his arm, her face conveying more sympathy than any human had ever shown him.

I’m sorry, her crimson eyes said.

Aodhán sobbed, then pushed the Salka’s hand away. Leave me alone, he thought. I’m the monster. Let me drown…

The Salka scowled, then flinched at an idea. She swam to the shale and yanked a loose slate free. Using her claws, she scratched the slate and showed it to Aodhán.

– Name? –

She can write? Aodhán looked at the wreck, remembering the twinkle in Father’s eye whenever he’d told stories of the sea. Of all the men of the sea Aodhán knew, only Father would do something as insane as teaching a Salka to write. She shoved the slate into his hands. He turned it over and wrote numbly on the other side with his knife.

– Aodhán –

The Salka studied the word, mouthing it out, but clearly her kind didn’t speak as humans spoke. She raced back to the shale and returned with another shard, beaming with a deadly, proud smile.

– Áeda –

Áeda, Aodhán thought. Salka had names? Or was that Father’s work, too? He bit his lip and wrote.

– I’m sorry –

Áeda’s smile faded. She wrote the next one carefully.

– Eggs. Took? –

Aodhán nodded.

– Why? –

There was no excuse Aodhán could offer. He stared at the shale, lost. Despite all the children who had died at the hands of the Salka, he couldn’t help but understand their rage – and feel ashamed. Tragedy. All of it. Áeda crossed her arms, tail swaying with impatience. At last she made a round gesture, then pointed up, stabbing her clawed hands towards where Ilya’s fleet lurked. Aodhán thought of the Heart of the Sea. Had Ilya lied about it too? He wrote hurriedly.

– What is it? –

Áeda grimaced. Her pale hand shook as she replied.

– Mother –

– Your mother? –

Áeda shook her head and spread her arms wide, indicating everything around them, and Aodhán understood. The mother of the sea. Why did Ilya want it? Aodhán asked as much, and Áeda’s face wilted with sorrow. She pulled him up to the Cormorant’s deck and pointed at one of the clusters of bioluminescent coral. It was bleaching of color right before his eyes. So were all the others.

The sea was dying.

And I’m the one who killed it. Aodhán felt a scream burn its way up his throat, but one look at the Cormorant’s helm stopped it dead. Father, what would you do? He looked to Áeda, who was tugging anxiously at her beaded hair, and knew what Father would say. Aodhán took out his knife and carved on the deck.

– Let me help –

Áeda gawked at him for a moment. When she smiled, it looked nearly human.

A torrent of shrieks tore from above. The Cormorant suddenly basked in the crimson light of a thousand Salka eyes. Aodhán felt an urge to hide inside the wreck. No. No more running! He looked up, holding his ground. Once more Áeda placed herself between them. This time, one Salka detached from the rest, twenty times larger than Áeda and as silvery as moonlight, with hair the blushing shades of dusk. Between the luminous sea stones and precious jewels adorning her humanoid half and the way Áeda bowed before her, Aodhán knew this Salka was like an empress.

A Regentess, he recalled from Father’s nightly tales. To serve as proxy for Maerskoi, the goddess of the sea.

The Regentess gestured at Aodhán, face twisted with fury and disgust. Her razor teeth were the length of his forearm. Áeda gestured wildly, but whatever they said was beyond his ability to hear, let alone understand. They argued back and forth, currents mirroring their fight, kicking up sand and buffeting the Cormorant until she groaned. Aodhán held on to the remains of the mizzenmast, feeling as if he were in the heart of a typhoon. At last, the chaos settled, and Áeda still held her ground. The Regentess, arms crossed, looked Aodhán in the eye. He knew what she was thinking.

“I’ll do it,” he said, standing tall and squaring his shoulders. “I’ll get it back. I swear it!”

The Regentess’s eyes narrowed. At last, she lifted her chin and made a dismissive gesture, punctuating it with a sweep of her powerful tail. The Salka parted.

They were giving Aodhán a chance.

Aodhán got a mouthful of water the moment he broke surface, but he’d never felt so glad for it in his life. The ascent had been a rapid, terrifying ride on Áeda’s back, and even with her magic protecting him from decompression sickness he felt like he had barely cheated death fifty times. Now he stared at the stars – and the looming shadow of the Lacrimae.

Áeda surfaced beside him and hissed at the warship.

“Stay here,” Aodhán said. When Áeda frowned, he smiled. “I’ll be fine. I owe you.”

Áeda sank until only her eyes showed. Notwithstanding the predatory nightmare that was below the surface, it looked funny, and Aodhán sputtered a laugh.

Someone let out a startled curse on the quarterdeck above.

“Hide!” Aodhán hissed. She slipped beneath the waves, and he started shouting. “Help! I’m in the water!”

A musket clapped from quarterdeck, and a shot howled past Aodhán’s ear. The alarm bell rang. Another shot nearly drilled his head.

“Wait! Hold your fire you idiots!” One Eye looked over the rail. “Tickle my balls and call me Lacey, it’s a ghost.”

“I’m not a ghost!”

“Oh yeah? Then how are you still alive?”

“I-I grabbed the line, but I lost hold of it near the end. I’ve been trying to catch up.” Aodhán made a show of struggling to keep above water. “Please! I can’t swim anymore!”

They dropped a line and hoisted him onto the deck. Half the crew was topside by then, and they greeted Aodhán like a hero. They cheered and lifted him upon their shoulders. His back was soon sore from hearty claps, and his ears rang from their chanting.

“Aodhán! Aodhán! Aodhán!”

It felt so good that it was easy for Aodhán to pretend to like it, but when the cheering hushed and measured steps thumped on the deck, his mirth evaporated. Even late at night, Ilya wore her gilded uniform, tricorn hat, and eye cloth. Her jeweled saber twinkled in the moonlight.

“And here I thought my men had had too much to drink,” she said. “Even the Seer thought you were dead.”

“I guess I’m a better swimmer than I thought,” Aodhán said, cracking a nervous smile.

The crew laughed and cheered again. Ilya’s face remained stone cold.

“Come with me.”

Aodhán steeled himself and followed her into the Lacrimae’s tight corridors. All the while he grappled with his rage. Staring at Ilya’s back, the woman who’d killed his father, tormented him for every second he tolerated it. It’s not just about you, he told himself. The eggs. The Heart of the Sea. He had to return them, even if it meant swallowing the poison of his hate.

“You did well,” Ilya said as they walked. “Few thought you would succeed. I made a lot of gold off my bet on you. The rest of the captains are drowning their losses in rum.”

“Did you get it?” Aodhán asked.

“It’s in the vault with others, with the Seer.”

“What’s he doing to it?”

“Whatever Seers do.”

They reached the junction in the hall. The vault was to the left. Ilya turned right. Aodhán hesitated, thinking of Áeda. She’s counting on me. He followed Ilya anyway, eyes on a swivel for any weapons he could improvise. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere we can talk in private,” Ilya said. “You’ve earned my trust, but I cannot say the same for the rest of the crew. Half are the Sealord’s dogs.”

An iron-banded door waited at the end of the corridor. Lanterns swayed on the ceiling, casting writhing shadows. Everything smelled of damp, salt, and leather. Ilya opened the door and stooped inside. Aodhán followed – and heard a rasp of steel leaving scabbard. Ilya grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall, eye to eye, her mouth twisted into a snarl.

“You smell like them.”

Aodhán opened his mouth, but Ilya’s saber pricked his throat.

“One lie and I will see if you bleed purple, little rat.” Ilya choked him, her grip like steel. “You think I’m a fool? You were in the ocean for twelve hours. One is enough to kill a man with cold. You’re not even shivering.”

Aodhán felt as if someone had scooped out his stomach. His body quaked with desperate energy, yet he dared not move. The Seer stood in the cramped room, waiting.

“So you think he’s in league with them?” he asked.

“I know he is.” Ilya dropped Aodhán to the floor, but kept her sword aimed. “Use your magic if you have any doubt.”

The Seer knelt before Aodhán and touched his shoulder. He drew his hand back with a gasp, then muttered an oath.

“So?” Ilya asked.

The Seer stood up and vigorously wiped his hand on a sapphire cloth. “Only Salka sorcery would be so… abrasive…”

“There you have it.” Ilya looked down at Aodhán. “Anything to say, traitor?”

The fire in Aodhán’s belly erupted. Despite his terror, he looked Ilya in her eye. “You killed my father.”

“Did the Salka tell you that?”

“I saw his ship and the holes you put in it!”

Ilya cocked her head and lowered her saber. “I did not kill him. He got himself killed when he had every reason not to. There’s a difference.”

Aodhán sputtered a curse, but her saber kissed his lips.

“Yes, that’s the face he made to me, the night before we came to blows. He revered those creatures. Thought it was wrong that I hunted them. He tried to stop me. That was his mistake. Now he sleeps with those vermin he loved so much. I’m sure they savored his flesh and used his bones to pick their teeth. Nothing tastes better to them than a man deceived.” Ilya nudged Aodhán’s chin up with the blade. “You shouldn’t have come back here. That was your mistake.”

Two dozen men had gathered in the corridor. Heavily armed and sporting crimson armbands and headbands. At Ilya’s nod all but two rushed off.

“What will you do with the boy?” the Seer asked. “I would like to dissect him. The effects of Salka enchantments are unstudied thus far, and my father -”

“This is my ship,” Ilya said. “And he is a member of my crew. I will do with him as I please. Though I recommend you attend. It will be a spectacle worth watching.”

“How wasteful.” The Seer sighed. “As long as you keep your word and set sail for Cridhe Uchdranis come morning, I will humor you, Captain.”

Ilya smiled, and nodded to Aodhán. “Bring the little traitor along.”

They dragged Aodhán to the main deck, which was now bright with lanterns. The entire crew had turned out and encircled the mainmast. When they shoved Aodhán against the mast, he heard the murmurs of the men – curses of surprise, anger, and shame.

“You’ve all heard it by now,” Ilya said, her voice carrying in the calm night. “This boy, who has served so well over the last few months, has chosen the sea over his fellow men. Consorted with the devilish Salka, just like his father. A fish lover. A traitor!”

Something landed on Aodhán’s head and flopped to his shoulder. A rope with a noose. Jax called down from the mainyard.

“There’s a lovely collar for you, boy! Get really fancy like before we toss you to the fish.”

They’re going to hang me. Aodhán jumped to his feet. The sea, and Áeda, was only meters away. But One Eye caught him, and at gunpoint they tightened the noose.

“I don’t like it,” One Eye said. “But orders are orders. You chose your side, lad.”

Ilya, Seer at her elbow, observed calmly. “Usually we’d tie shot around your feet and toss you overboard, but that’s an old trick for you. Since the sea refuses to kill you, we will use the noose, and then sink you. Give your slimy friends something to ponder.”

“N-No…” The words spilled out of Aodhán’s mouth. “Please, please don’t -!”

“Too late for that.” Ilya accepted two glasses of wine from a servant with a red headband, and handed one to the Seer. “You made your bed. Now you get to sleep in it. Forever.”

Aodhán’s voice dried up as One Eye lifted him onto a stool. The noose tightened.

“Must I watch this?” the Seer muttered. “I have better things to do.”

Ilya’s mouth twitched. “You said you’d humor me. Drink your wine and watch.” The Seer rolled his eyes and drained his cup, then crossed his arms. Ilya drained hers and approached Aodhán. She planted her right foot against the stool and looked him in the eye. “Any final words? I will pass them on to your mother.”

Countless things sprang to mind, yet nothing would come out. Aodhán felt like he would explode. He couldn’t even close his eyes. His whole body felt like it had been wrapped in ice and maggots. Ilya gave him a whole minute, then sighed.

“So be it…”

Ilya tensed her leg – and spun around, drawing her pistol and aiming it right at the Seer’s forehead. In an instant the Lacrimae’s deck erupted with shouts and drawing blades. The men wearing crimson bands jumped into action, putting at sword and gunpoint the men who lacked them. The bandless responded in kind. Ilya’s voice tore above the din.

“Anyone moves and the Sealord’s precious spawn gets a third eye!”

The bandless men froze.

“Good. Now drop your weapons.”

“No! Ignore that traitor!” The Seer leered at Ilya, face cherry red. “You think you can just betray me? Betray my father? I’m a Seer, not a fangless seal!”

“You could have fooled me,” Ilya said.

The Seer laughed and spread his arms wide, channeling magic – only for nothing to happen. He blinked, tried again, but all it looked like was a man imitating a flapping seagull. The color drained from his face faster than water through a net.

“Morrígan’s Tears,” Ilya said. “A tincture from the bark of a holly tree. It nullifies a sorcerer’s power.”

The Seer paled further. “The wine…”

“No wonder your father sent you to do an errand boy’s work. You can’t even detect poison, let alone measure up to your brothers and sisters and your lord father’s expectations.” When the Seer deflated, Ilya looked from face to face – and then aimed upwards. Her pistol clapped with a burst of fire and sparks. A second later Jax, also bandless, landed on the deck, a hole in his throat and his hand still gripping an unfired musket. Aodhán watched the man asphyxiate on his own blood. Ilya handed her pistol to One Eye, who gave her another. “Anyone else? No? Your weapons, then. Now.”

The bandless men – all loyal to the Sealord – dropped their weapons. Ilya’s loyalists, members of her old crew, gathered them up and corralled the prisoners to the port side.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Seer said.

Ilya looked at him dispassionately. “Making off with the Heart of the Sea, and everything else.”

“You won’t get away with this!”

“A lot of men have said those words to me. Funny I’m still here, and they’re dead.”

The Seer trembled, teeth bared. “You’re a dead woman!”

“Says the dead man.” Ilya shot the Seer between the eyes, and then turned to the prisoners. “Loyal men of the Sealord, I appreciate your service, but I have as much use for disloyal men as I have for a broken tiller. I hope you can swim.”

Screams rose as Ilya’s men forced the prisoners overboard. The Sealord’s banner fell to the deck. In its place rose the battered crimson colors of Ilya’s Ferruvian heritage.

“And so the hawk snags the fish…” Ilya looked to One Eye. “Clear for action, but don’t run out the guns – not yet.”

The commotion intensified. Some of the Sealord’s men fought and died for it, but most went willingly enough and splashed towards the dark outlines of the other warships. By the time the deck was clear the Lacrimae was swinging around, sails full to the wind. The motion teetered the stool. Aodhán looked at Jax, feeling sick, but Ilya stepped over the corpse and cut his noose.

“You thought I’d hang you?” she said. “You forget, I’m a liar.”

Aodhán rubbed his throat. “Why…?”

“I have better uses for you.” Ilya looked to starboard, into the moonless night.

“Halt!” shouted a voice from out to sea – and with it, the looming shadow of another frigate, the Thalassa. Its captain stood on the forecastle, face red by lantern light. “Captain Viteazu! What is the meaning of this?”

“What can I say?” Ilya called. “The Sealord’s men like to swim.”

“Heave-to and prepare to be boarded!”

“You’re not boarding anyone,” Ilya muttered. She lifted a hand.

All thirty of the Lacrimae’s portside gun ports swung open and roared, sweeping the Thalassa’s decks with grapeshot and canister. A second broadside took her at the waterline with heated shot, and a third toppled her mizzen and mainmasts. No return fire came from the Thalassa, but the Naiad, a heavy second-rate, appeared to starboard – only to receive a full broadside before her bleary-eyed crew could run out their guns. Fire swept the Naiad’s decks, and while the Lacrimae raced free, the battered frigate drifted into the Thalassa with a crash of splintering wood – and then disappeared in a storm of fire as her powder magazine detonated.

Ilya turned calmly, greatcoat fluttering in the hot blast.

“Take note, Aodhán. That is how you betray a king.”

Aodhán glanced at the rail, freedom an easy sprint away, but Ilya grabbed his arm.

“I meant it when I said you made your bed. Try my patience again and it’s curtains for you.”

They lashed Aodhán to the bowsprit like a second figurehead.

“I have no further use for your wet skills,” Ilya said. “But perhaps you can serve for luck. It is a long voyage to Yun Shin, and the Salka will try to stop me. If they love you so much, they will think twice. If they do not, you will be the first they feast on.”

Yun Shin. A distant land of jade and palm trees, but most of all, exotic remedies for all ills. Even as he struggled against the men lashing him to the bowsprit, Aodhán felt a tingle of premonition. “The Heart of the Sea… You want to bring it to their healers?”

“Gag him as well,” Ilya said.

“And the silvers on his wrist?” one of the men asked eagerly.

“No.” Ilya turned away, touching her stomach. “Leave them be. He earned them.”

They left Aodhán to the cold spray and colder wind, and no matter how hard he searched the dark waters below, Áeda was gone.

Aodhán wondered how many days he had left before he died. Another night came, cold and wet and sickening, but relief for his sunburnt skin. Early dawn etched the black horizon with a razor’s edge of pink. The dark ocean heaved below, but he still caught glimpses of the ocean’s desperate life.

They’d started to gather after the Lacrimae had fled – the creatures of the sea, from whales to sharks to great schools of salmon. They teemed around the ship, so many that Ilya routinely ordered cannon fire and grenades to clear them away. The creatures shrank back, but they kept pace, always watching and gathering in strength.

They can sense the Heart of the Sea, Aodhán thought numbly, shivering as another wall of spray lashed his salt-crusted clothes. A whale passed below, visible by the white of its belly as it rolled. They want to live. Their home is dying…

Aodhán wished he could feel guilt’s stab, but he was too cold and hungry and thirsty to feel anything else. Many sleepless nights had frayed his mind. Nonetheless, he tried once more to work the thick rope binding his arms to the bowsprit. A mocking whistle came from the forecastle – Grom, one of his watchmen.

“Oi, the fish lover’s at it again.”

“Let him. He’s not getting anywhere,” midshipman Nelson said with a snort. The other two guards were asleep until five bells. “All right, I’m dealing. Loser has to water the sorry shite.”

Playing cards slapped down on the deck. Aodhán hated that sound, how they could play a game in all of this… Something scratched at the hull. He looked down and saw the whale again, which had momentarily nosed up against the side of the ship, but a flicker of motion by the port hawse hole seemed a trick of the night. Father’s coins felt cold on his skin. I can’t give up. Aodhán wrenched his arms, grunting as the rope bloodied his wrists.

“Oh, bloody hell. That does it!” Grom stormed over and slapped Aodhán in the ear with the flat of his cutlass. “I’ll start taking fingers if you -” He grunted and then tumbled past Aodhán. The deadly swell at the bow cut off his scream.

Aodhán’s mind raced, and raced faster still when he felt someone working at his bonds.

No, it can’t be…

Yet when he pulled himself up and sat on the bowsprit, he found a girl his age with sea-green hair and crimson eyes and pointed ears. She wore a stolen oilskin coat. Nelson lay on the deck, unconscious.

“Áeda?”

Áeda smiled, showing razor teeth.

Aodhán had heard legends of Salka transforming into human shape, but he’d never thought them true. Before he could ask, Áeda pulled him to the forecastle, teetering and awkward on her human legs but crouching to compensate. Once there, she hugged him so tight he thought she’d break his ribs. She smelled of the ocean.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, just as dizzy with wonder as he was with dehydration.

Áeda rolled her eyes and jabbed a clawed finger at him. Saving you!

“Oh… right. Thank you.”

Nelson groaned and stared to move, groping for his belt.

“We should tie him up…” Aodhán began.

Áeda calmly yanked Nelson’s head back by his hair and raked her claws across his throat. Blood gushed across the deck. Aodhán jumped back, but Áeda’s crimson eyes arrested him. He knew what they were asking.

“B-Below deck. Ilya’s keeping them in a vault.” He found himself grabbing Nelson’s pistol and saber. “Come, I’ll show you.” What the hell am I doing?

The right thing, said a voice in his head.

Áeda smiled, and together they turned for the stairs…

A signal lantern blinded them.

“That’s far enough,” Ilya said, stepping in front of the lantern. Fifty men reinforced her from the shadows. “A traitor and a shapeshifter. You two look quite the pair.” She glanced at Nelson’s corpse, then at the blood meandering towards her boots. “You show your true colors again.”

Aodhán stepped in front of Áeda, pistol aimed even though he’d never held one before.

“Whether you miss or not you’ll die if you pull that trigger. Lower the gun, Aodhán. You are not a killer.” Ilya calmly aimed her pistol at his head. “I am.”

Áeda hissed and tried to make a jump at Ilya, but Aodhán caught her arm. “Don’t!”

“That’s right, little sea wench,” Ilya said, lips curling. “I have your people’s eggs and your precious relic. They belong to me now. How does it feel to be robbed of what you love?”

Áeda broke free. Aodhán tried to stop her, but it was too late. Ilya’s pistol erupted with a flash of sparking powder, and Áeda reeled across the deck with a spatter of purple blood. Aodhán caught one glimpse of her wide, tearful eyes before she pitched over the rail and fell into the sea. He screamed and aimed, but Ilya grabbed his arm and wrenched the pistol aside, driving her knee into his gut. He doubled over.

“You don’t know when to quit, I’ll give you that,” Ilya said. “That little bitch is dead, and the rest of her kin will follow. You ought to choose the winning side.”

Aodhán tackled her, only to end up flat on the deck, four men holding him down. Ilya put her saber to his throat, her one eye bright with fury.

“Stupid little fool. You want to die that badly? So be it. I will execute you right now and let the sea have both your cursed corpses.” Ilya cocked her head. “That monster must have liked you very much. Shapeshifting takes a lot of sorcery, and I hear it is excruciating for a Salka to part from the sea even for a moment. Too bad she wasted the effort on you.”

Aodhán felt steel slice along his neck…

“Captain!” One Eye shouted from the quarterdeck.

Ilya ground her teeth. “What is it?”

“Ship on the horizon!”

“What?” Ilya lowered her blade and stormed to the port side, where fog shrouded the pink eastern horizon. A warship lurked in the haze, and it wasn’t alone. Another materialized alongside it, then another, and another, until the entire horizon glowed with dawn-painted sails. It was more ships than Aodhán thought possible. Ilya gripped the rail until the wood groaned.

“So soon…” she whispered.

The ships got clearer, and their blue-and-silver colors with them.

“The Sealord has come!” someone shouted.

“And with all his strength,” One Eye said. “That’s over a hundred -”

“I can count,” Ilya hissed. “Nigh two hundred ships, and a Seer to each one. Damn them!”

“Murdering his son asked for it.”

“Uther doesn’t give a damn about that rat. He has hundreds of sons and thrice as many bastards. It’s the Heart he wants.” Ilya whirled, shouting at the top of her lungs. “Clear for action, and set her full to the wind! We outrun them for the Razor Isles! There we will lose them! If not, we will drown the ocean with their blood!”

The Lacrimae burst into action. Men clamored aloft to work the rigging, prepared cannon and fire buckets, sanded the decks, and lined up loaded muskets along rails. Cutlass and hatchet gleamed in the dawn. Ilya took her place by the helmsman. Two men kept Aodhán kneeling beside her.

“You’re not leaving my sight until this is over,” she said.

The Lacrimae’s sails caught an easterly wind, pulling taut with a groan of lines. The warship charged over the swells, her sleek bow cutting the ocean like a knife. Aodhán could not fathom how the Sealord’s fleet could catch up, not unless… He felt a tingle in the air, and gasped when the wind died. Magic! The waves died next, the whole ocean turning glassy but for the desperate sea creatures teeming around them. One Eye cursed as he leaned on the portside rail.

“They’ve taken the wind,” he said. “The currents too. We’re in dead water!”

“So he sent his strongest Seers as well.” Ilya clicked her tongue. “Oars out. We paddle.”

Crew rushed below and manned the triple oars. Two levels of oars slid from the Lacrimae’s hull and thrashed the water. She inched forward – then shuddered to a halt.

“What is it now?” Ilya growled.

“Sea creatures!” the lookout called. “They’re swarming!”

They’re trying to stop us, too, Aodhán thought.

“Get them off!” Ilya shouted.

Cannons and swivel guns and grenades rocked the ocean. Men with muskets and long pikes raced along the rails, jabbing at octopi that had crawled up the hull. The sea relented at first, but then a voice rose above the din. Its pitch was just at the edge of Aodhán’s hearing, high and lilting and more beautiful than anything he’d ever heard. Shivers raced down his spine. A series of cracks split the air, and the Lacrimae shuddered.

“They’re going for the oars!” One Eye said.

“Stop them you imbeciles!” Ilya grabbed a musket and fired over the rail, cursing wildly.

That voice. That song. Aodhán felt its warmth in his chest. Áeda…

The song shifted, gathering pace, and as more Salka joined in the song, the ocean moved. Fish of a thousand kinds retreated outside the range of the crippled Lacrimae’s guns and began to circle. The calm sea churned with them. Meanwhile, the Sealord’s fleet pressed in, its Seers conjuring a favorable wind. They were close enough that Aodhán spied the men scurrying on their decks, but the sight of the ocean whirling between the two forces drew him in.

The ocean, united by the Salka’s song.

“Whirlpool!” One Eye shouted. “Those bloody fish! Cannon! Fire! FIRE!”

A broadside hammered the ocean, but the creatures persisted, and the whirlpool deepened, tugging the Lacrimae off angle. Ilya, still at the rail, seemed frozen, staring wide-eyed at the chaos. One Eye stumbled to her side as the Lacrimae tilted further.

“Captain, your orders?”

Ilya gripped the rail.

“Orders!”

“Ready the longboat,” she rasped.

One Eye blinked. “In these waters?”

“The longboat, Lieutenant! And keep fighting. I will kill any cowards personally.”

“A-Aye, it will be done.”

Ilya raced below deck, taking several men with her. Meanwhile, the Lacrimae slanted into the whirlpool, which was now a kilometer across. On the other side, the Sealord’s fleet opened fire. Cannon shot whooshed overhead. Return fire roared from the Lacrimae’s lower decks. Under One Eye’s cursing orders, sailors readied the longboat at the davit.

She’s trying to escape. Aodhán glanced at his captors, who seemed only half interested in him over their own terror…

A volley screamed into the Lacrimae. Splinters and fire washed over the deck, and suddenly Aodhán was on his side, ears ringing, face hot with blood. He scrambled over the deck, glimpsing the carnage between gouts of spray and smoke. Everything tilted sharply. The song rose stronger than ever, more Salka joining Áeda. The whirlpool deepened, the winds giving it a roar of its own. Crew abandoned their stations, One Eye’s shrieking commands falling on deaf ears. Afar, the Sealord’s ships tried to pull back, but several were already in the whirlpool. One tried to race towards the Lacrimae, its Seer bold, but the whirlpool yanked it down, and the frigate tipped into the depths and splintered to shreds.

Aodhán staggered through the chaos. Blood slicked the deck. He slipped to his knees, fearing he had been hit, but then he saw Ilya emerge from the main hatch. She had a small chest in her arms, and her men carried several others. They made for the longboat. Aodhán forced himself to follow. I have to give it back to the ocean!

It was all he could think of doing. There couldn’t be any other way.

The Lacrimae groaned to a thirty degree angle, dipping further into the whirlpool. Spray and wind hammered her from all sides. A loosed cannon crashed across the deck, crushing two of Ilya’s men and sending their chests of Salka eggs spilling over the side.

“Leave them!” Ilya screamed to the others, pressing on.

More warships fell into the void, Seer sorcery powerless against the sea’s rage. Vessels slammed together, wood shattering, sails tangling and snapping like dry chicken bones.

Hurry, Aodhán told himself, staggering after Ilya. HURRY!

One of the Sealord’s ships, its zealous crew accepting their doom, circled alongside the Lacrimae from below and fired a full broadside. The deck disappeared in smoke and splinters. Aodhán found himself clinging to the mainmast, which was now almost horizontal, the whole warship on her side and floundering. He blinked blood and seawater. Ilya crouched farther up the mast, still clinging to the chest. Her hat was gone, and her hair tangled and stuck to her face. A large splinter jutted from her right thigh. She limped away.

Aodhán crawled along the mast. The song rose, and the whirlpool consumed ship after ship. The mast took him above the chaos as water swallowed the Lacrimae’s decks. Ahead, Ilya had stopped where the mainmast had splintered off. Her shoulders slumped.

“Look at this,” she said. “The sea has always been our enemy. Here you are, trying to save it.”

“Give it back,” Aodhán said. “You have to give it back!”

“You don’t understand.” Ilya looked back, her visible eye tearful. “If you found a way to bring your father back, would you do anything to make it happen?”

Aodhán blinked. “Your child…”

“In Yun Shin there are sorcerers who can undo death, granted the material. What greater fuel for such magic than the Heart of the Sea and the spawn of its magical children?” Ilya’s voice sounded distant, her eye unfocused. “This was supposed to be my victory. All my life, I’ve been fighting this cursed sea and the men who think they rule it. I rose this high to bring it all down. Even if I must murder the sea and everything in it, I will have my family back… and if I can’t, at least I can take them with me, this ocean and all of its temptations that drive men mad.”

Seeing Ilya now, wounded and at a loss, twisted something in Aodhán’s heart. “What you told me about you and my father. Was that a lie, too?”

Ilya gazed into the chaos. “No, that was the truth.”

“Then why did you…?”

“Since the dawn of time the sea has turned the hearts of friends against one another. Even the hearts of lovers…” Ilya touched her stomach, wincing. “It is a cruel place. Do not ask for it to be fair.”

“Please, just let it go.”

“It’s far too late for that.” Ilya tucked the chest under her armpit. A grenade was suddenly in her hand, pressed against the wooden underside of the chest. “One way or another, I will win.”

Aodhán jumped forward, only to see the silvery arc of Ilya’s saber. He staggered back, feeling steel slice his forehead. Another slash raked along his forearm, cutting his bracelets. With a wink of silver they fell into the sea.

“I should have killed you sooner,” Ilya hissed. “This is your fault. All of it!”

She attacked again. Aodhán stepped back, but a tremor shook the mast, and they both slipped. He grabbed the ratlines and found himself dangling above the heart of the whirlpool, the Lacrimae twisting into it. Ilya hung a meter away, the chest still tucked under her armpit and grenade still in that fist.

“Let it go!” Aodhán shouted.

Ilya’s glare told him that had she had three hands, she would have drawn her pistol and shot him. Instead, she tried to pull herself up, only for another tremor to weaken her grip. Seawater and blood mingled with her eternal tears.

“LET IT GO!”

Ilya let go of the ratline instead, and as she fell, reached for the grenade’s plunger.

Aodhán felt as if time had dragged to a crawl. Everything muffled and slowed. He swung off the ratline, colliding with Ilya and knocking the grenade from her bloody grasp. She cried out, and together they slammed into the sea.

A darkened chaos of wreckage, ropes, and corpses greeted them, all to the turmoil of innumerable creatures churning around them. Ilya lost hold of the chest, and Aodhán grabbed it. She snarled and drew a knife, but the Lacrimae’s mizzenmast surged between them – and a jumble of lines snagged Ilya and dragged her down.

She grabbed Aodhán’s ankle.

NO! Aodhán kicked, but her grip was relentless. Ilya looked him in the eye, but as she did the twisted look of hate on her face intensified, then softened. The cloth covering her other eye danced away. She smirked, then mouthed.

“You win.”

Ilya released him, and the lines dragged her, unflinching, into the deep.

The chest vibrated in Aodhán’s arms. Crimson light bled from every crack. It disintegrated, and from it rose the Heart of the Sea, bathing all not only in crimson, but in blues and greens and purples, the whole sea lighting up with its power. The sea creatures calmed and pressed in, collectively witnessing Aodhán and the Heart. He felt their judgement – and their forgiveness. With a collective shift that seemed like a sigh, a million creatures departed into the blue. Only the Salka remained.

Aodhán felt like his lungs would burst, but strength was leaving his body faster than he could muster it. The Heart gently sank, and the Salka gracefully swam with it, passing him by with glances that held no hate.

The current yanked him down, but from the blue came another set of red eyes. Áeda… She had a furrow in her side from Ilya’s shot, but her face was bright with joy. She reached for him, her razor smile nonetheless beautiful.

Aodhán clasped her hand.

When the fishermen saw Aodhán rise out of the ocean, they thought they were seeing a ghost. By the time he crawled onto the slimy rocks, braving the crashing surf, all of Meenlaragh rang with bells and shouts and barking hounds.

Aodhán recognized the tidal pools around him. He had almost drowned here, long ago. Looking back on it now, after everything, he couldn’t help but smile, even as his heart ached. Shouts drew his gaze towards town. So much had happened, yet this place, his home, looked the same. Tears sprang to his eyes. Áeda watched him from just above the water’s surface, her crimson eyes glittering in the daylight.

“Thank you,” Aodhán said.

Áeda smiled.

“Aodhán!” a familiar voice screamed.

Aodhán turned and saw Maria and Aaron rushing along the rocks to meet him, their eyes as wide as their smiles. Sindri and all the others, too. And even though he couldn’t see her yet, he heard Mother’s voice rise above the din, calling his name. He felt like his heart would burst.

Home, Aodhán thought. It felt so unreal. Like fevered dreams. I’m home…

Water splashed behind Aodhán, and when he looked back, Áeda was gone. Father’s bracelets rested on the rocks instead, and alongside them, a lock of green hair glowed in the breaking sun. Aodhán gently picked them up and gazed out to sea, tasting the salt on his lips, remembering the stories Father had told. Stories of wind and waves and stars. Of the ships upon the sea, and the Salka beneath. Stories, Aodhán realized, like his own.