Isla barked a laugh. “I’ll say. Why are you on a ship?”
“The shipbuilders of Iona would often include tributes to me on their vessels. This one’s quite flashy. A lot of times they would name them after me or put a plaque or portrait somewhere in the captain’s quarters. They thought it would bring good fortune to them. It didn’t make a difference, of course, but who was I to discourage it?” She winked at Isla and drifted further into the wreckage.
Swimming closer, Isla saw the base of the statue had a faded insignia she now recognized. It was a mountaintop with two arrows piercing through it: the symbol of Iona. As if she needed any more evidence that this ship had come from the lost kingdom.
They could only see bits and pieces at a time due to the short range of their light, and venturing further, Isla saw that the ship was turned on its side. The edge that had slammed into the rocky shelf was caved in, and piles of sharp, broken wood were scattered across the sand. The tall masts were in splinters. Almost every inch of the ship was either rotted or covered in algae, fish swimming in and out of various holes. The scent of brine and salt filled her nostrils.
Billowing chunks of seaweed and coral had overgrown much of what would have been the quarterdeck. She guessed whoever had been traveling at the time of the wreck had been wealthy, for jewels spilled out of old barrels and boxes, rust and cracks disguising what used to be shining gems.
The next few feet illuminated as they floated, and Isla choked on a scream.
Bones.
A human skull floated by in the midnight blue water, a fish snaking its way through the eye sockets.
Behind an overturned barrel lay a heap of deteriorated gray bones, but Isla could still make out their shapes and sizes as the light descended upon them. Some looked no larger than those of a child.
“What happened here?” Isla whispered as she took in the debris and devastation.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was a passenger ship sailing from Iona to one of the other kingdoms at the end of the war.” Kai shivered. “It was probably one of the last groups to leave. Based on the size and wealth of the ship, not to mention the dagger being here, there’s a large chance it was—”
“My ancestors,” Isla finished, her stomach rolling. If that was true, someone must have survived, must have made it to Evonlea, or else she wouldn’t be alive. But still, this ship was a mausoleum of her family. The Vasileia line.
They touched down onto a solid surface, the brittle wood creaking beneath uninvited weight. Their little air bubble must help to keep gravity at their feet and prevent them from floating away.
“Do you feel anything?” Kai asked.
Isla hadn’tstoppedfeeling the dagger the entire time. It had almost become a part of her: the beat of its siren call blending with the thrum of her heart, its once shockinghumturning to whispers that caressed her thoughts.
Isla only nodded.
They half walked, half floated through the hull and past doors leading to various compartments of the ship, now in ruins. The captain’s quarters, the cabins, the galley. All a wasteland of water and sea creatures, of corroded wood and steel, of bones belonging to a forgotten generation that lost their lives while searching for a new hope.
It made her sick.
But the pull of the dagger kept Isla going, kept her rifling through ancient artifacts, disrupting the burial ground. She only hoped their spirits had found better peace than what she saw before her.
They stumbled through cabin after cabin, the call growing stronger the deeper they went. Isla didn’t know what to expect, but she felt in her soul that she’d know when she found it.
They reached the interior of the hull, where Kai said the cargo would have been held. The moment they descended onto the lower level, something stirred.
The air was colder, and the light from their golden bubble was getting sucked further into the black water. The vibration in Isla’s bones grew to a crescendo as a smile involuntarily curled on her lips.
To her left, she walked through an opening with a wooden door broken on its hinges. Isla’s hands shook as her eyes fell on a large chest in the corner of the room. Her feet carried her until she dropped to her knees before it, algae and waterlogged sawdust billowing like a cloud around her.
Laying her hands on the rounded top, the humming grew to a roar.
She opened the chest.
Inside was a wide array of bronze and copper artifacts, darkened and calcified from the centuries spent wasting away. But on top, shining and perfect, was a dagger. Its blade was a foot long and made of strong, solid steel, unblemished and glinting. The handle was gold, swirling with patterns that looked like vines snaking their way from the handle up the steel of the blade. At the hilt sat a large, blood-red ruby, as brilliant as if it had been crafted yesterday.
Kai let out a soft breath behind her.
Isla swallowed, trying to calm her galloping heart. She reached out a hand and closed her fingers around the handle.
Instantly, the humming and pounding ceased.
A rush of power cascaded in waves from the dagger, up her arm, and into her entire body. She got to her feet then staggered backward at its force, gasping as a shockwave went out from where she stood. The ship rumbled and teetered around them, fish and other creatures furiously vacating their dark holes.
