Chapter 25, Roberts

  I wake to the sound of muffled cheering.

  At first I think nothing of it, until the hole in my stomach and the splitting headache remind me where I am. On a ship with a crew full of starving pirates. I pull on my boots and shoulder belt, as well as a thigh holster and a pistol, to be safe.

  A crack of thunder cuts through the cheering as I get nearer. The air is heavy and wet, the sky above thick with dark grey clouds that look ready to break.

  The deck is packed, shoulder to shoulder, crew pressed in so tight that I can’t see what they’re watching. But whatever it is has them craning forward, shouting over each other, jostling for the front.

  Gery sees me coming and helps me push a path through the fray. I spot Sarah crouched low, circling a heaving, bloodied Harken. Her lips are curled into a confident smirk, her movements sharp and fluid.

  “What’s this?” I call over my shoulder to Gery.

  “Duels!” Gery shouts back. “This is Sarah’s fifth round, no one can beat her!”

  “Sa-rah, Sa-rah, Sa-rah!” Gery yells directly into my ear. Soon there are dozens chanting her name.

  How are these the same sorry souls I left only hours ago? They’re far too energetic. And then I see the bottle being passed around.

  I fold my arms and plant my feet, bracing against the bodies pressing in from all sides as I focus on the match.

  Harken clutches a heavy wooden mallet that’s serving more as a crutch than a weapon, while Sarah wields a broomstick like a spear, darting in with quick, precise strikes and circling Harken relentlessly.

  He swings low, aiming to sweep her legs, but she leaps clean over it. I crack a smile. She makes it look effortless.

  She follows with a flurry of sharp taps to his hip, thigh, and shoulder. Like a cat toying with its prey. I see the frustration in Harken’s eyes, but he’s grinning wide.

  And because I know him so well, I can read his next move before he makes it. A feint to her head to bait her guard, then a jab toward her ribs with the handle of the mallet.

  But Sarah sees it coming too. Still gripping the broomstick, she steps in and drives a punch straight into his jaw. It lands clean, follows through to his mouth, and knocks him back a step. He throws up a hand in surrender.

  “Bravo,” I say, clapping half-heartedly as I step to the center of the circle.

  “You want next?” Harken pants, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  I look at him and say nothing. I don’t want next. I want to know where the rum came from, and why he thought it’d be a good idea to start this in the first place.

  Harken doesn’t notice the look I’m giving him. “She’s good… really good.” He grins, blood staining his teeth. “We should keep her.”

  “Aye, we’d be lucky to have her,” Gery says.

  “Next time she fights, point her at our enemies,” Jake adds, sitting on a barrel while Sonya dabs at the blood on his forehead with a cloth.

  “She’s unnatural, that one,” Joanne says, massaging her wrist, which is rich coming from a woman who’s eight feet tall.

  “I should know, I’ve fought her myself.” I glance at the bottle as it changes hands again. “So, Hark, you’re hiding stores now?”

  “It was mine,” he says. “Just one bottle. Figured it was time to share.”

  “We’re starving,” I snap. “None of us are thinking straight, and that’s how people get killed.”

  Harken drops the cavalier act. “They’re not fighting with steel,” he says.

  “All it takes is one bad bet and then it will be steel. I’m not losing any more crew, Harken.”

  He looks at me with furrowed brows, mouth twitching like he’s thinking carefully about what to say next. Then his eyes soften, and he smiles sweetly. The kind of smile a child gives their mother when they’re trying to get away with something. I shift my stance awkwardly and glance down at my feet, waiting for his reply.

  Instead, I hear swords scraping from their sheaths and the sharp clicks of pistols cocking, cutting through the air. My skin crawls and my blood freezes as I snap my eyes to the crew. At least a dozen weapons are held at the ready, yet not a single eye is on us. Every last one of them is fixed on Sarah.

  It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up with what my eyes are seeing. It’s Sarah, and it’s not. Her eyes are glowing gold, so brightly it blinds me if I look directly at them. It’s like staring into a furnace. Heat warps the air between us, but the feeling in my gut is cold as ice. She’s not moving, and I can just barely make out the rise and fall of her chest.

  “I knew she was something unnatural!”Joanne breaks the silence. “No one fights like that!”

  “It’s the weeping witch!” someone shouts. “Don’t look her in the eyes!”

  “It can’t be…” Sonya murmurs, squinting against the light, her hand lifted like a shield.

  “Captain, tell me you know what this is,” Harken says.

  But nothing I could say will cut through the shouting, the fear closing in from all sides. And until they get a real explanation, I can’t blame them for falling back on superstition.

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  “The weeping witch drowned my brother!” someone cries from the edge of the crowd.

  “The weeper’s blood is cursed,” another says. “Don’t spill it here, we must drown her.”

  “Aye, before she drowns us!” shouts Joanne.

  “Her eyes are too bright to be the weeper,” says Gery.

  I step in front of Sarah, cocking the hammer of my pistol. The shouting cuts off at the sound of the metallic click. I let the silence hang for a second. “I vouch for her,” I say, keeping my voice calm but firm. “Does anyone feel like testing me?”

  No one speaks, but weapons remain drawn. Then Gery shifts, planting herself beside me without a word.

  Jake flanks our other side, shoulders squared. “I trust you, Captain,” he says.

  I fix Joanne with a hard stare. She just narrows her brow and sets her jaw.

  Next comes Sonya. Then Manee. One by one, I search the eyes of my crew, forcing each of them to choose. I look to Harken last. His weapon stays holstered but his feet don’t move. And just like that, the deck has become a fault line. There’s no coming back if it breaks.

  “Sarah, talk to me,” I say over my shoulder. My eyes scan the deck methodically as I stretch my awareness as far as it will go. Every breath, every twitch, every shift of weight. If anyone so much as flinches the wrong way, I’ll be ready.

  “Do you hear me, Sarah?” I ask, raising my voice.

  Dozens of eyes are focused on us, but one pair shifts. Joanne is gazing at the sky, her clenched expression melting into bewilderment. Then I see confusion twist into Harken’s brow. I turn, following the direction of his gaze, and see a dark shape looming in the distance, growing larger with every passing second.

  “What in all the hells—” Gery says.

  “Is that a—” Jake trails off.

  “It’s an illusion, the weeper is distracting us!” says Joanne, “keep your wits about you!”

  “Dragon,” Sonya whispers.

  I can see wings now, and a serpentine body stretched beneath them. It's sailing toward us faster than an arrow, and larger than the ship itself. Still, I somehow manage to tear my eyes away and look back at the deck.

  Joanne is standing with her arms outstretched, three others behind her like she's their shield. She's shouting, "stand your ground!" even as panic floods her voice.

  A couple of swabbies fumble with the hatch, desperate to get below deck. Harken's eyes are fixed skyward, but his cutlass is out now, braced in both hands.

  I look back up. There's no mistaking it. A dragon is barreling straight for the main mast. If it’s here to destroy us, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  Heat prickles up my spine, and sweat trickles down my forehead. My hands are shaking. My breaths come short and fast.I muster every ounce of strength to stay still, refusing to flinch from what I’m sure will be the impact.

  But just when it’s about to strike the mast, it pulls up hard, sending a thunderclap of wind crashing over us. The deck groans beneath our feet. Sailcloth tears, barrels overturn and collide with skidding crates. But the creature doesn’t attack. It’s just hovering there, casting an even darker shadow than the rain clouds above. I saw it hatch when Sarah jumped from the crater. How can it already be so big?

  “Captain! What do we do?” Sonya shouts, the wind nearly tearing her grip from Jake’s arm.

  Almost at the same time I shout, “Sarah! What does it want?” My mouth hangs open as I look frantically back and forth between her, and the thing that might annihilate us all.

  Screams, pounding footsteps, and the splash of bodies hitting water are all but swallowed by the roar of wind in my ears. A few pistols fire, but the bullets don’t stop the dragon from descending. Its dark, scaled body twisting as it surveys the scene below.

  There’s something clutched in its talons. With a chilling shriek, the dragon releases it. A cow. It lands on the deck with a sickening thud and sends a shudder through the entire ship.

  I glance at the cow, then back to Sarah, stunned. She has moved. Her head is tilted back, face turned skyward. She’s staring straight into the creature's gaze, and it’s staring right back. Their eyes are the same: molten gold and unblinking.

  “See! She’s controlling it with her eyes.” Joanne cries out.

  Then the dragon begins to rise, banking left. The shift in its direction sends a gust of wind that rocks the ship hard to starboard. It circles us, stirring the sea into chaos, with waves cresting and colliding in no rhythm and no pattern. As if the sky were in on the spectacle, rain begins to fall in heavy, stinging drops. The ship heaves and rolls, and the dragon circles again.

  This time, as it whips around the port side, it opens its massive jaws and unleashes a stream of fire. The blast cuts a sweeping arc through the rain, turning it to steam and lighting the fog with a sudden flash of amber. A thunderclap follows, so loud it feels like it could split the ship in two. The dragon’s roar comes even louder, the two sounds merging into one bone-rattling percussion that shakes the sea beneath us.

  I spin my head around, expecting it to continue the loop but instead it rises, disappearing into the clouds and leaving us slack jawed and silent.

  My ears are ringing and my limbs feel numb. As if another surge of adrenaline would cripple me.

  Harken speaks first. “That’s no weeping witch.”

  I hear the soft shuffle of boots on wood and see Gery drop to one knee, then the other. “My Queen,” she whispers, lowering her head.

  A hatch door creaks and swabbies poke their heads out.

  “Don’t—” Joanne says, but the ones behind her step out from her shadow and take a few steps forward.

  Manee moves next, bending beside Gery. I take stock of who still grips hilts with white knuckles. It seems the majority aren’t ready to drop their defenses, worried that Sarah might still obliterate us all. And that fear alone is dangerous.

  I lower myself to one knee, pressing my hand to my chest. “The Dragon Queen has saved us from starvation.”

  Keeping my head low, I listen to the sounds of more shuffling to their knees. Now would be a good time for Sarah to say something. Just a word, a gesture. Anything reassurance that she doesn’t mean us harm.

  I look up. Her eyes still burn so bright it hurts to look at them, like staring into a raging fire. And it isn’t just the light. It’s the heat, and the power radiating from her. It feels like it could turn my bones to dust.

  I feel the breath catch in my throat as I wait for any sign that Sarah is still in there. Then it happens. Her eyes flicker, and the light goes out.

  It’s blinding in a different way, like stepping into darkness after being in full daylight. The afterimage burns behind my eyes as I blink, trying to clear the floating orbs.

  Then she collapses, a lifeless heap on the deck. Sonya rushes to Sarah’s side and cradles her head, brushing a few strands of hair from her face as she checks the pulse at her neck. “She’s alive,” she says, more worried than relieved.

  The rest of the crew begin to rise, moving like people waking from a nightmare, half-believing it’s over, half-waiting for the next blow to fall.

  I kneel beside Sarah, slide one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her knees. I rise, bracing her against my chest, and turn to leave.

  Harken steps into my path, giving me a hard stare. “You owe us an explanation,” he says.

  I pause, looking down at her. “And I will give it to you,” I say. “But not like this.”

  I shift Sarah’s slumped form in my arms, steadying myself. “For now, let’s not bite the hand that feeds us.” I nod toward the carcass on the deck. “If you want to question miracles on an empty stomach, be my guest. But I’d rather eat first. Then we talk.”

  Harken looks at Sarah, then steps aside, his jaw set as he averts his gaze.

  I move past him, carrying Sarah to my quarters. Her skin is warm and her breath is steady, but she doesn’t stir. Maybe the dragon magic took too much from her. Maybe when she opens her eyes, it won’t be her at all. The thought hits me like a ton of bricks. I can’t lose her. Not when I just found her again.