Chapter 70

  Alone save for ten souls, the Admiral sat on the deck of her ship as the sun rose in the distance. The sky was clearing of the st few clouds, the storm that had hobbled her Tooth now long gone. The sea continued to p against the ship, the sound different now that the ship wasn’t moving. They had spent three hours hauling food and water stores to dry areas. They had lost two buckets of water, a cask of ale, a bag of beans and a bushel of apples. Some of their field rations were wet, unusable now, fit only to feed the fish. By some small miracle, her tea had survived, though the tin was dented. She stared out over the water toward the isnd. A boat was coming back. She frowned. The crew was supposed to be resting. She wondered if Nereida was on the boat, or if her wife had put the children first.

  The ship was in danger of being damaged further by the stress of being tilted on her side. Ael did not know much about the actual construction of her ship, but she could hear the pnks groan when she moved across them. If the ship broke apart beneath the strain, they would be stranded. Ael wasn’t sure she could survive if her ship did not.

  “Be strong, old girl. We’ll heal you, I promise. Just hold on.” She let herself quietly grieve, tears refusing to fall. Her heart was shattered, and it was her own fault. She had chosen this path.

  She heard the sounds of new voices coming aboard. The Grand Admiral composed herself, taking a moment to clean up her braid, wipe her face, and straighten her jacket. She would give a piece of her mind to whomever had come back. They knew what “abandon ship” entailed, and coming back just after dawn was not on the list of acceptable things.

  It was Dymion and his carpentry crew. She opened her mouth to argue, but faltered.

  “I’m here to see if she can be saved, Admiral.” The gnome stepped toward her, a serious expression on his bearded face. “But your Princessy wife made me promise that if the ship can’t be saved, that I’m to get ya to nd even if I have to convince you with “diplomacy”.” He lifted his little mallet. Despite it all, Ael felt a ugh bubble forward.

  “Did Nereida suggest you take a hammer to my head if I wouldn’t go back to the isnd?” The gnome grinned at her, his green eyes bright with amusement.

  “She suggested that maybe a tap on your noggin might bring ya to yer senses.” He motioned to the carpenters behind him. “Permission to come aboard, Admiral?”

  “Granted,” she chuckled.

  After an hour below, Dymion returned, bringing his folks up behind him.

  “Good news and bad, Admiral,” he said without preamble. “She’s fixable, but she’s going to need a fair bit o’ wood. I only got five on my crew total, and even with unskilled help, it's going to take me a week, maybe two if the weather is against us.” He grimaced. “And your wifey won’t let us harvest any trees until she has permission from the locals. Something about not wanting to piss off the sirens.” The Admiral nodded.

  “I expected that she’d be concerned.”

  “I have a recommendation, Admiral, but you ain't gonna like it.”

  The Admiral looked down at the gnome, the only adult other than Nereida who was shorter than her. She suppressed the grimace.

  “I’ll hear it.”

  “Until we have the sirens’ permission to use their wood, we move our supplies to shore, and ALL personnel. You ain’t saving her with ten men, Admiral, no matter how much ye wanna.” His tone was gentle and patient, almost sad. “I know she’s yours, Admiral, but the Tooth can’t be saved without wood. And you got somethin’, someone else that’s yours who is goin’ outta her mind with worry.” He dropped his voice low for that. “Ship ain’t going down, Admiral.”

  Ael swallowed the lump in her throat. She touched the mast, silently begging for the ship’s forgiveness. The wind blew gently around them, and the mast creaked as if she were speaking. Ael felt a tingling up her spine, but with the energies of the new moon ebbing, she wasn’t able to summon the visions and get a clear direction.

  “Your proposal is accepted,” she whispered after a long moment. The Grand Admiral squared her shoulders, donning her title as armour once more. She would need it to get through the day. Tonight she could grieve in her wife’s arms. Today she would do what was necessary for the crew and for her family.

  It was a day of back breaking bour. Water was heavy, and difficult to transport in the boats. The crew from shore took turns rowing in, but the ten who had stayed behind worked tirelessly to haul whatever they could. Personal trunks were left behind but were moved to the highest points in the ship. Each person could retrieve one set of clothing to bring back with them. Ael tended to her family’s clothing, and even took a moment to gather things for the boys to py with. She also spared a thought for her brother-in-w, grabbing clothing and baby rags for him. Ael grabbed the letter from the queen giving them permission to marry, and stowed it away in her desk after sealing the scroll case with wax to protect the missive. She considered bringing it to shore, but did not want to risk the weather destroying it.

  She was the st to load herself onto a boat. Ael stopped at the mast one st time, pressing her head into the familiar wood.

  “I’m sorry. I will come back. Don’t break on me, my girl.” Her voice was rough with tears. She let one drip down, offering it to the mast as a tribute, before she wiped her eyes and donned her emotional armour. She made her way carefully to the row boat, and gave the order to row to shore.

  The Admiral offered to help row, but her offer was rebuked by crew who were fresher, who had eaten warm food for lunch by the fires on the shore. And so she had nothing to do but stare at her ship as they went further and further away. She had nothing to think about except her failures, even as the crew chatted with each other, trying to keep spirits high. She barely heard their words, barely felt the rocking of the little boat or the seaspray on her face.

  “Ael!” Nereida’s voice crashed into her over the sound of the waves. Ael looked up to see her wife had swam out to meet them. Her short hair was pstered to her face, her eyes were wide and worried.

  “Love,” Ael breathed. “You should be with the children.”

  “I will be in ten minutes or so. Right now, I’m here for the one who needs me most.” Ael felt tears threatening to spill again. She smiled a tearful smile at her wife, and found some of her grief draining away.

  Once they made it to the shallows, Ael got out of the boat and ran to her wife. She felt the familiar curves of her wife’s body pressing against her, her wife’s warmth and tender touch the balm her heart needed. She began to cry then, her walls breaking apart without Nereida speaking a single word to her. Nereida’s arms tightened protectively as Ael fell apart in her wife’s embrace. She let herself feel, let herself drown in the emotions that she had dammed up for so long. The water pped at her legs, cold and uncaring.

  And when all her tears were spent, Ael looked into Nereida’s stormy eyes.

  “I love you,” Ael whispered softly. “My ocean and my rock.” Nereida gave her a soft kiss on her cheek, chaste and sweet.

  “I love you too, Ael. Come on, the children want to see you, and your crew needs to see their Admiral be strong now.”

  “Jules and Gregors?”

  “Alive, both of them. Gregors is still unconscious. I didn’t have much power left when I helped him,” she sounded guilt-stricken. Ael squeezed her hand. She wanted to tell her wife that the bme y on her, not on Nerieda, but she could not put her own guilt into words. It was too fresh, hurt too much, and had such a high cost.

  “The wood?” Ael asked, instead. A safer topic, one without complicated feelings.

  “I’ve sent Kana’s husband to find the locals. He should be back by nightfall.” Ael nodded.

  Hand in hand, they walked onto the sandy beach. Ael felt a strange feeling of “rightness” wash over her, something she could not expin or understand. But she knew they were where they needed to be. She walked amongst her crew, all of them, taking time to reassure them, telling them that they were not stranded without a way forward, that things were going to be alright. By the fourth or fifth repetition, she almost started to believe it. By the tenth, she was certain, in the way that she knew the sun would rise in the east and that the moon would always change her face, that she spoke the truth. They were not trapped. This was not their new home. It was merely a temporary port. A small side adventure.

  Her grief melted away beneath the power of her certainty. Before she could articute what she was feeling, Egaz came flying at her, hugging her leg fiercely.

  “You didn’t stay on!” he said excitedly. “You didn’t get trapped!”

  “There was nothing to trap me, little one,” she said with a little smile. “The danger was gone.”

  “Not trapped by stuff, step-mama.” He crossed his arms and gave her a fierce, adorable little gre. She grinned at him. He was going to be a force when he was grown. “By the big feelings in your heart. It’s not your fault that you had to make a big choice, step mama.” He hugged her again tightly before skipping off. Ael stared at him, feeling the tingle of his magic on her leg where he had hugged her. Did he have some kind of future sight too? Was Nereida right?

  She put the thoughts of Egaz’s magic aside, and called to her crew, standing on one of their crates.

  “For those not too tired, we will do stories beside a proper fire tonight,” she decred in her loudest voice. “Bring out your best! Tonight we celebrate before our work begins again.” A cheer rose up. Ael felt a rush of warmth, of strength. They were going to be alright. This was just a little setback. Nothing they couldn’t handle.

  Dinner was a lively affair, with the children chatting and asking a thousand questions. Ael ughed and answered all that she could, abandoning some questions entirely. She had no earthly idea why the sky and sea were both blue, or if that was why sirens were blue.

  “Sylph’s aren’t blue,” Alejo said with all the authority of a child who is convinced they know the answer. “And if they are of the sky, and not blue, then the sky isn’t really blue, it’s just the reflection of the sea!”

  “I think Sylph’s aren’t blue because they don't have to hide in the sky,” Epelda signed. The boys turned to her with wide, curious expressions. “But Sirens hide in the water. They have to, from predators and things.”

  “There are things that could eat us in the water?” Alejo asked fearfully. Nereida jumped to the rescue, calming their son as she expined the ocean’s predators in more detail than Ael knew. She had no idea there were more than one kind of shark!

  The evening passed into nightfall. The children curled up together on some ferns and a cloak, csping hands until sleep took them. Epelda, still exhausted from her song, curled up near them, taking the egg from Nereida.

  “I have little sis,” she signed with one hand, as she stifled a yawn. “Go tell stories, moms.” Nereida kissed the girl’s head tenderly.

  “I have a stop to make first, but then I will. What story do you want?”

  “Tell them,” Epelda motioned out toward the crew. “Tell them the real story of you. After all this… they should hear it all. Let them hear what is real.”

  “That may be the longest bedtime story I’ve ever been asked to tell,” Nereida joked nervously. Ael took her wife’s hand. She could feel Nereida tremble.

  “This is the crew, family,” Epelda signed, a sad expression on her face. “We became pirates for you. And they’ve all seen Little Sissy.” She touched the egg gently. “They need to know.” She set her mouth in a line, too hard an expression for her youthful face. She looked to Ael for support. “Mom, we can’t have a repeat of the attack on Water-mama.” Ael’s own face hardened at the memory. Bad enough that Nereida had been attacked under her protection. If someone came for her egg, her daughter, she was not sure how monstrous she would be.

  Ael looked up at Nereida, saw the woman’s fear melting into something else.

  “If someone hurts any of my babies they will drown in their own blood,” Nereida signed sharply. Ael smiled. Her wife was perfect.