Page 112 of The Space Between Stars

Calver lunged for her. Metal chains clanged as he thrashed, clawing for her face with a bellow that brought her hands to her ears. She stumbled backwards, tripping over Mitek, and fell onto her backside.

“Captain?” Turiel asked. “Permission to release the next dose.”

Her father nodded curtly.

Turiel prodded a blue-tinted needle affixed to a stick through the bars and into Calver’s thigh. Her brother’s body seized as he screamed again, thrashing and pulling at the manacles tethering him to the ship’s side. Fankalo gasped as the wood where the irons met the hull cracked. But Calver’s fit subsided moments after. Ten heartbeats later, his limbs fell limp. His head lolled to one side.

Fankalo’s father locked eyes with her. The look on his face was, perhaps, the worst part of it—as if her association with this monster made him see her differently.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She backed away. When he opened his mouth to say something else, she turned and ran for the main deck. Up the rungs. Through the hatch. Into the unforgiving moonlight.

Fankalo tucked herself between two cargo crates, so that all she could see were stars, and let her tears bleed.

Preservation help her, out here maybe the wind would cover the sounds of her suffering. No one would hear her. No one would know how damaged she was.

She reflected on the moment she’d first felt Calver vanish back in Kaidech—when he’d left her. What a fool she was; he had been gone all along. All this time, she’d thought the impression she’d been chasing was her brother, the sun and moon. But it was only a shadow from the world that had come between them.

TWENTY-SIX

FANKALO

Year: 740 Post Cataclysm: 8 Years Previously

Location: North Sea

Fankalo woke as her limbs were seized by multiple calloused hands. She screamed, earning herself a slap across her face. The blow shocked her into silence as she was hauled from between the cargo crates and manipulated into a standing position. Timbre. It was Timbre.

And Declar. And Bren.

Anger pooled into her stomach like liquid flame. She flailed, her arms going nowhere in their talon-like grips. The only part of her that moved freely was the indignant shriek pulling from her chest.

“T-Timbre?! What?”

A fist found its way into her diaphragm. Her body seized; stars pressed against her eyes. The men dragged her across the main deck. She was so stunned, she could hardly encourage her mind to catch up. Then, with appalling awareness, she realized her wrists had been tied. A hook wiggled between her hands to catch at the ropes that held them. It hoisted her until the tips of her toes scraped the ground.

When her father learned of this, they would be brigged. Bled. Marooned. He would gut them and sew them back up again seven times over.

She dared another scream, but another slap suppressed its reach. Then a whimper sounded beside her: a more dread-inducing noise than the bestial bellows of her once-brother. Fankalo’s neck snapped around. Two meters from where she hung, ropes dyed crimson secured her father to the center mast. The scent of blood mingled in her nostrils with brine and betrayal.

Her father’s eyes bored into hers, pained, pleading. A dagger protruded from his gut. Another from his chest. A third from his thigh, as if he were a fish skewered for roasting. Her memory had cheated her: she had forgotten that human skin was fragile. For others, perhaps, but certainly not for Captain Keane of the Rogue’s Rapture.

Timbre, Declar, and Bren slunk away. Not one spoke. Where was the rest of the bleeding crew? Surely someone would find them. Help them.

Tromping sounded in the hold below. Stifled shouts. Bangs. Bumps. The minutes did not spare her any pain. Her fingers began to itch, then sting. The sounds from below moved beyond the hatch and spread to the deck.

The stars glared down at her with judgment. Her father never once looked away. His eyes did not judge; they adored. She wished they didn’t. Somehow, this must be all her fault.

It might be her last chance to speak to him. “Father,” she gasped, falling short.

“I love you,” he mouthed. Only then did she see the purple mark around his neck. How it was swollen to twice its usual size.

The footsteps were beside them now. One by one, members of the crew came into her line of sight. Most were bound by their wrists, while Bren and Declar jostled them forcibly. Their feet dragged, like they’d taken ale from a well.

A hand grabbed Fankalo’s shoulder to spin her around. She fought to keep her weight on her toes to ease the excruciating pull at her wrists. Gelhard’s narrow face came nose to nose with hers. “You enjoy reading about war. So you should understand: this.” His words were clipped, in the way one spoke to an imbecile. “Is. A. Mutiny.”

No fucking shit.