‘What? What?’ I yell, swiping water from my eyes. I can’t see a blasted thing.
‘Land ho!’ she shouts, snapping the spyglass shut. She’s smiling like she’s possessed.
‘We’re not trying to find land!’
‘But there’s someone out there!’
‘We’re not trying to find anyone!’
‘I think we can get closer. We have to help them!’
By Paranish, she’s probably hallucinating. Who in Holy Aistra would be on a random rock in the middle of the ocean? In a storm, to boot.
‘Gimme that spyglass!’
Ris tosses it, bloody fool. It nearly slips, but I manage to catch it gracelessly.
I slide the spyglass open and wipe away the condensation. My view bobs and bounces but I can see it. There is a blighted rock in the middle of the ocean. It’s a steep and jagged stack, no bigger than a tavern long table. It’s covered with molluscs and algae but there is someone standing against the elements. Clad in black, arms outstretched to the skies. A creature from the depths. Paranish, we’ve summoned something.
‘Fin, what should we do?’
It’s like I’ve woken up. Like startling awake in my bed after a dream, feeling like I’m falling. The words are out, commands leaving my lips and my hands finding familiar purchase. My head clears, a fog of drunken stupor and terrible decisions sloughing off my skin. Paranish, it’s been years since I’ve felt this raw and alive.
chapter fifty
ris
Surveying the ocean withmy spyglass has become a nervous habit of mine, since the kraken. If I don’t have it in my hands I find myself sanding down the edges of the broken taffrail with a rough cloth. It feels like a charm. If I can see everything around us then nothing can hurt us. I know that’s illogical, but I suppose this is the petty magic I try to work. When I first see the figure, I have to stare through the spyglass for an eternity before I understand what I’m seeing. Rain creates a waterfall, which obscures my vision, and I have to fight to keep sight of her.
We throw down the anchor line, and the woman finally notices us. It’s like she was in a dream, standing pummelled by the storm on that abandoned rock. Her boat is being dashed to pieces. She looks up atSaltsweptas if the ship were an illusion. I suppose we both doubt each other’s existence as I stretch out my hand and indicate the anchor line. The ship bucks and roils like an unwieldy pack animal rejecting another rider.
‘Can you climb up?’ I ask, cupping my hands around my mouth to yell.
The figure wipes water from her face and squints hard at me. She half staggers towards the edge of the rock and reaches for the swinging rope. I gasp as she loses her footing. She catches herself at the last minute. Her feet are bare. A sodden shawl and billowy dressadd to the ghoulish look of her face, wan and gaunt, pale tendrils of hair whipping around her. What ordeal has this poor wretch been through? It’s only then I notice the baby. It’s strapped to her chest in a rudimentary sling, and it looks only a few months old: small and pale and worse for wear. I shudder to think how cold the poor babe must be. They crave the warmth of the womb, and you must try to recreate it for them. That was one of the last pieces of advice my fathers gave me, although they never lived to meet Biba.
The woman grasps and slides up the rope, snake-like. Her progress is painfully slow, and I doubt the strength of her arms.
‘I have to help her!’ I tell Finlyr, rushing down below deck. I open the hatch and nearly throw myself out of the window to secure her. She grips my hand, her fingers sharp and cold as ice.
‘Give me the baby,’ I yell.
She holds the infant close with her free arm, her face haunted.
‘We’re trying to help you,’ I insist. ‘You need free hands.’ What has she been through?
She braces against me and makes it upwards, where the others are waiting to help her clamber overboard.
The captain’s quarters are closest, and she stumbles to the room, collapsing in a heap as soon as her body finds soft furnishings. Her limbs are stiff and unyielding as I take the child from her arms. I empty a drawer and make a crib as best I can with piles of clothes and dry the child, rubbing some life back into her as she cries.
‘She needs to eat,’ I observe as the child reaches for me suckling empty air.
‘I can’t,’ the woman moans.
She shivers so violently, the talisman at her neck jolts up and down. It’s a dark stone with a strange swirling forest green pattern within. I peel the soaked shawl and dark dress and chemise from her.Her arms are covered in faded cuts and lacerations, particularly her wrists and hands. The scars are white and raised in the cold. At the top of her left thigh, a deeper scar, livid and angry.
I bundle her in thick blankets. She eases a little, her shivers coming in less pronounced waves. I wrap my arms around her, trying to still my own shivers as my body warmth merges into her. It’s like the core of her is ice. Her lips tremble, turning vein-blue to ghastly white and then finally to a pinkish tan. Despite the streaks of silver in her dark hair, I see how young her face is when it’s not contorted in distress. When she seems to drift into sleep, I creak up, knees clicking. At the disturbance, she clutches at my arm, fingers still ice cold.
‘Please don’t leave me,’ she implores, voice as sharp and clear as glass. ‘I’m so cold.’
