I chew my bottom lip as the kraken’s eyes drag over the body of my ship—all glorious wood and gilded trimmings thanks to my father’s insistence. I despise the way the beast looks at her hull, like she’s an empty seed pod in the wind.
Then I run for the nearest crossbow.
“Cap—” Elio says.
I don’t answer. The weapon is already loaded, slick in my hands, blood and rain running down the stock, but I brace it against my weight and squeeze. The bolt whistles through the storm, and then sinks deep into the kraken’s eye with a wetpop. A groaning shriek pierces the night sky, shaking the ship to the bones. Purple blood spurts from the wound, trailing down the sea monster's body. The beast recoils, thrashing, tentacles reaching for the ship, colliding with the hull.
The impact sends a shudder throughThe Gilded Hartand she groans in protest.
“Hands on your bows!” I shout, voice raw over the thunder. “Aim for the eyes!”
Elio, Odi, the crew. They scatter like crabs. Reaching for every crossbow in sight, mounted or not, and as I release a breath, bolts are loosed into the inky night. A few find their mark, biting into soft, squelching orbs. The kraken bellows, batting most away with a sweep of its limbs. The deck rocks under the weight of its fury, planks groaning as if ready to snap.
“AGAIN!” I scream.
And again the crew fires off bolts. This time many find their mark.
Beyond the shrieking male, the female waits. Not attacking. Just circling. Watching. Patient as death itself. Waiting for her meal—my crew.
Not today you filthy sea cow.
I reload fast, forcing the massive weapon steady as I aim. My heart pounds in my ears, my temples throb. I think of Odi. Of Otto. Of Elio, Tavi and Soraya. Of mother. I’d doit for them. It’s madness to even try. But I steady, exhale and let the bolt fly.
It tears through the downpour and I use my darkvision to track it. My mouth splits into a feral grin when it finds its mark. The female’s central eye. The ocean shatters around me with her shriek, worse than thunder, worse than the cry of a sea wyrm. Her eye bursts into a spray of milky yellow fluid, juices raining down on the waves slapping at her skin. She writhes, descending into the ocean in a storm of bubbles and thrashing limbs.
The male freezes, lets out a bellow that rattles every exhausted body on deck, then surges after her into the deep.
Gone.
The birds scatter with them, peeling away into the sky, their screeches fading into an echo. And just like that, the storm breaks. The sea is calm. The sky opens in a surreal blanket of soft light.
I feel the gentle pressure of someone squeezing my hand, and I’m not sure which of us reached for the other, but when I glance down it’s Odi, gripping back like she’s afraid to hope that this might be the end. So I squeeze her hand back.
The moment the sun’s warm beams hit my skin, I drag in a breath that I’d been too afraid to take. And I stand there on the deck, chest heaving, crossbow trembling in my grip, soaked in rain and kraken blood, with Odi by my side.
“That was fucking brutal,” I whisper.
BLOODSTAINED HANDS COMFORT NONE
26
ODELIA
The relative silence echoes in my ears. We’re still. Tense. Waiting for the storm to brew again. But the rocs are all but invisible in the distance now, and the krakens will follow, waiting for the next unlucky ship caught in their deadly, symbiotic wake.
“Gather the wounded and the dead, search the water too. I want a head count,” Rune says. His voice is even as he fades out of his half shift, though he grips my hand like the world is tilting. It may as well be—the Sotor? They’re a legend. A myth. A ship may survive an encounter with a young, curious kraken. But the Sotor are the breeding pair, royalty in their own right. Older than kingdoms.
We shouldn’t be alive.
“We’re taking water!”
I don’t recognize who says it, but Rune lets go of my hand and bolts that way. I follow on instinct, pulled by his gravity. A younger man with wisps of auburn on his chin meets us at the door of the lower deck.
Rune takes a cursory glance around. There are more of us down than standing. I don’t miss the way the muscle in his jaw feathers as he tracks each face. “Have you seen Merrick?”
The other man’s hands are shaking as much as his voice. “He went over. I tried to—I tried—”
Rune doesn’t wait for the crewman’s panic to settle in, instead he clamps a hand on his shoulder, spinning him away from the carnage and steering him down the stairs. “Then you’re our shipwright!” Rune says, his tone brooking no argument. I follow them into the dark of the lower deck, blinking against the sudden dimness.
