my broken arm forward, followed it, lugged it again, catching the exposed bone on the seams in the deck. I cried out. Kept moving. So close.
The toe of a boot pressed down on the rolled letter. My insides shriveled.
A hand grabbed the tiny scroll away.
Madwulf bent down and met my eyes. Whatever horrible thing he uttered stopped at my ears. Holding my gaze, he slowly, deliberately ripped the letter into tiny pieces, walked it to the bow, and flicked the remnants over the side.
Gone.
Destroyed.
It would never come back. I would never know the words, never read them, or hear them.
The pain was so powerful, so monstrous, I collapsed beneath the gravity of it. All I had left was the grief burning inside me, my twisted little friend with arms that embraced me in fire and teeth that sloughed the meat from my bones. I sank into its constricting grip and begged it to end me.
Still, my body refused to die.
Madwulf’s men hauled me up and strung me to the foremast. Without the strength to stand, I buckled against the rope that caught me around the thighs, hips, and ribs. My arms were forced at my sides, punishing me with another layer of agony as every broken bone and shredded tendon rubbed and pushed against the squeeze of the restraints.
Then they walked away.
I didn’t need my hearing to know their intent. They’d left me here to die.
Meanwhile, they slaughtered the last goat and passed around the dregs of the wine casks. Ashley’s men had deserted the Royal Navy in hopes of living merry and acquiring riches. Now they would.
They had my father’s map.
As the crew’s morale took flight with smiles and dancing, mine plummeted.
Swelling had set in on the side of my face, pinching my eye shut. My jaw, cheek, and ear felt like a massive knot of fire, pulsing and stretching. My broken ribs turned every breath into a battering strike, and I refused to look at my arm. I couldn’t without passing out.
I went mad with the urge to claw my way out of these ropes and throw myself overboard. I wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t here, hanging from a mast and awaiting my death.
Would the pain follow me when I left this place? I imagined it would, if I never saw Priest and Ashley again. I imagined the pain would be worse.
Hours felt like days, and I still couldn’t hear. The bells of the afternoon watch must have rung, for the watchmen changed. Unlike the dreary weather.
The fog around the ship seemed to thicken. We weren’t moving.
The wind had dropped off. The sails hung loose. I didn’t need my hearing to sense there were no waves. No tide. The ship wasn’t rocking. Were we close to land?
The pale, obscuring mist prevented visibility beyond the bows. I tilted my eyes up and focused on the crosstrees. If I could hear, I imagined I would be listening to my rattling teeth, whimpering gasps, and the dying pulsation of my heart. I could feel the latter like a thudding drum, slowly losing energy.
The decks lay quiet to my broken ears. The glow from a pipe, the flicker of a lantern… Nothing else caught my eye in the gloom. Another hour passed. Two. Still, I kept my gaze on the crosstrees.
The watch changed again.
I felt myself fading, my limbs chilling in the oppressive humidity. Fever setting in.
Then something fluttered overhead. Feathers. Wings. A flash of a red beak. And another.
I knew that species of seabird. They flocked to the low, rocky cliffs of the bird island.
My heart restarted, pushing through the exhaustion of stress and pain.
Madwulf had taken my bait.
Minutes later, in a fleeting moment of lucidity, I glimpsed a vessel breaching the fog off the starboard bow.
Her silhouette split a hole in the vapor and emerged from the haze like a phantom ship. The bank of mist flinched away from her hull as if shuddering in fear.
I pinned my lips together, trapping the flood of my frantic breaths.
Amid the sound of silence, the air didn’t stir, the wind chillingly dead. She slid across water that was as smooth as glass. Dew glistened along the lines of her rigging. Her decks bristled with armaments.
I would recognize her mighty masts anywhere.
Jade had arrived for a fight.
Jade crept in, stealthy and dark, sliding board-to-board with Blitz. Whorls of mist curled around her spars, her masts looming overhead like the tentacles of a giant monster slowly rising from the sea.