In Deeper Waters F.T. Lukens (acx book reading txt) 📖

“I will one day,” Poppy said with a firm nod, tearing a bandage with her teeth. She wrapped it around Tal’s upper arm and tied it off tightly. “I’ll call her when I need her. All right, I’m done. Keep them clean and you should be fine.”

Rot rolled his eyes.

“How do you call her?”

Poppy raised an eyebrow. “I thought you grew up near the shore. You should know these things.”

Tal opened his mouth to retort but closed it when Rot leveled a glare. Exhausted and aching, Tal didn’t fight when Rot hauled him up and shoved him back into the cage. He left the canteen of water, and for that Tal was grateful. Tal sank to the floor and leaned against the wooden bulkhead as Rot and Poppy disappeared up the ladder. Tal slipped his shirt on and pulled his legs to his chest. Forehead on his knees, he closed his eyes and clutched the shark’s tooth hidden in his pocket.

7

The first full day of Tal’s imprisonment started with Rot banging on the slats. Tal had spent a fitful night attempting sleep in the cramped enclosure. The sleep he managed to get had been filled with worry and nightmares. It was a reprieve from his own thoughts when Rot pulled him from the enclosure and forced him to face the day.

Breakfast on the crew deck was hardtack and a gulp of water while a group of sailors watched him with sharp eyes. He endured their amused gazes when Rot grabbed him by the back of the neck like a disobedient puppy and led him to the bow with orders to swab the deck. Tal watched the sunrise on his hands and knees, scrubbing a holystone over the deck as others threw a mixture of cold seawater and sand on the wood. It took Tal hours to complete the chore, sloughing off salt crystals and smoothing out pits in the wood and tar. By the end Tal’s hands were cut and stinging. His back ached. The fabric of his trousers was shredded at the knees, and his skin was pink from the sun.

All the while the sailors taunted him, dared him to use his magic to save himself. At one point one dumped a bucket of water over his head, and he sputtered and inhaled sharply, choking and coughing until he crawled to the ship railing and vomited over the side. His stomach cramped, and his back bowed, and the sailors laughed.

He wouldn’t give in. His magic surged and ebbed like the waves that rocked the vessel, but he wouldn’t release it. Though he burned from the inside with hot embers, he wouldn’t give Zeph the satisfaction or the leverage. That piece of himself would remain his own.

Instead Tal watched for a means of escape. He spied two jolly boats affixed to the stern, useless out in the deep water unless he knew what direction to row. He looked for a flash of red and gold in the waves and tried not to show his disappointment when he didn’t spy a familiar tail. He listened to the sailors talk, hoping to pick up some scrap of useful information, but they only sang bawdy songs and spoke of myths and conquests. The crew was eclectic, a mix of skin tones and accents and genders—some, from Tal’s own kingdom, stared at him with undecipherable expressions, while others, from the kingdoms Tal’s family had destroyed, studied him with narrowed eyes and sneers. Rot kept him away from the openly hostile, but even with his watchful eye Tal suffered a booted kick to his ribs and a wad of spit to his cheek.

Hanging on to the railing at the stern, Tal clamped his lips shut and closed his eyes, resting his pounding head briefly on the glossy wood, breathing heavily through his nose. His mind wandered, and he hoped Isa’s wedding, and the alliance she had worked so hard to cultivate, were not ruined by his disappearance. Of the five of them, Isa was the most political minded and adept, and she had no qualms about using her beauty and cunning to secure what the kingdom needed. She’d wooed Emerick with love letters and gifts, and secured the alliance despite their mother’s insistence that she did not want her to enter a political marriage.

But Isa was determined to bolster their foreign support and protect their eastern border. As if a lifelong commitment to a stranger were no sacrifice.

Tal missed his older sister desperately and hoped his last interaction with her would not be him scowling while she held his hand and led him to Garrett’s ship to begin his coming-of-age tour.

“Hey,” Rot said, breaking into Tal’s thoughts. “No rest for magic princes.” He jerked Tal up from his exhausted slouch. “To the bilges with you.”

In the belly of the ship, crouched in slimy water, Tal pumped the handle of the bilge pump—a device that reminded him of the bellows in the great hall’s fireplace. It dispelled the water that collected in the bowels of the ship. Even the best-made warships leaked and required this task to be completed daily, but on this ship, which creaked and moaned in the smallest of waves, the bilge had to be manned continuously. Tal worked for hours, until his arms screamed in protest, and another sailor relieved him.

Dinner was fresh fish cooked over a small fire. Tal ate his share, licking his fingers when it was gone, and he guzzled the water passed to him.

“Captain wants to see you,” Rot said as Tal nodded off at his spot on the crew deck.

Exhausted, Tal staggered to his feet and followed Rot to the captain’s quarters. The door was cracked open, and Rot didn’t hesitate to enter the captain’s room. Tal followed, head bowed, shoulders sagging.

Zeph sat at her desk, cutting into a thick filet of fish, a full goblet of wine within reach.

“Leave us,” she said, not looking up.