The Hold

The cruelty of the sea did not lie in the raging tempests that ripped canvas sails to shreds, but in the silent imprisonment within the copper-sheathed belly of a ship.

Three weeks had passed. Or four. Ixara was no longer certain of time.

In the pitch-black abyss of the Sable Albatross’s cargo hold, the concept of day and night was entirely erased. There was no brilliant sunlight knocking against the ashbloom canopies, no songbirds heralding the dawn, no crisp sea breeze to soothe her. Here, there was only ink-thick darkness, the musty odor of damp rice, the acrid stench of gunpowder, and the most terrible odor of all: the smell of her own vomit and sharp sweat.

Ixara lay curled tight in the narrow gap between two rows of wooden crates, her arms wrapped around a chest that heaved with violent spasms. The five-hundred-ton vessel pitched continuously upon the savage Atlantic swells. Every time the bow plunged into the trough of a wave, her entire stomach felt shoved up into her throat by an iron hand. She vomited bitter green bile, the harsh taste lingering between her teeth, parched and burning raw.

Her antique-bronze brown skin, once as sleek and smooth as a ripe cocoa shell, was now pale gray, coated in a sticky layer of cold sweat. Her long, shoulder-length braided curls clung to cheeks hollowed by hunger and thirst.

One moon has already passed, Ixara thought bitterly, her fingers digging into the oil-stained timber floor. The Ahtelan tribe has only eleven moons left. The sacred trees must have shed all their leaves. The river of my homeland has surely turned into a pool of toxic mud...

SCRATCH.

A familiar, faint sound echoed from the wooden ladder.

Ixara forced herself up, resting her back against a powder keg. A slender figure tiptoed through the crates, holding a tightly wrapped burlap cloth.

"Ixara..." Jory whispered, his voice trembling and rushed. He dropped down beside her, swiftly unfolding the cloth. "I brought you some hardtack and a flask of fresh water. Eat quickly; they’re prepping the new watch on deck."

Inside the cloth lay two pieces of hardtack, hard as stone, and a dry, grayish-red slice of salted pork. Ixara did not hesitate. She snatched the meat, devouring it greedily, though the harsh salt burned her parched throat like roasting fire. She grabbed the flask, gulping down every last drop.

"Thank you, Jory," she whispered, her voice raspy.

Over the past three weeks, this fourteen-year-old child had been her sole lifeline. In return, Ixara offered the only thing she possessed: the ability to see deep into subconscious memories through smoke. Every time he brought food down, Jory sat spellbound as she spoke of his mother, invoking childhood memories he thought he had lost to the English cold.

Yet Jory was not the only one descending into this dark hold.

By the second week, as her seasickness temporarily subsided, Ixara knew she could not simply lie here awaiting death. She needed information. She needed to know where this ship was heading, how it was structured, and most importantly: what kind of man Garrick Wynmore was.

She began reaching out to the lower-class sailors who came below to gather firewood or check the water casks. Employing no charm craft—for she lacked the strength—Ixara chose to offer small, covert divinations using the ash of ashbloom leaves.

She told the sailor Thomas that his young son back home had recovered from the marsh fever. She warned the Black cook that his spice jars were about to be ruined by rats. Those unnervingly accurate predictions spread like a haunting yet mesmerizing rumor among the lower-deck crew. They came to regard her as a "lucky little witch," secretly bringing her baked potatoes, a candle stub, or a dry branch for warmth, in exchange for prophecies about their families in far-off England.

Through their mouths, a picture of the ship and the Viscount gradually took shape.

"Captain Wynmore?" Thomas had once whispered to her on a windless night, his eyes wide with equal parts terror and reverence. "He’s no man. He’s a calculating machine made of iron. He can look at a sea chart and know precisely which wave will strike the hull ten minutes from now. He’s never smiled, never drunk more than a single cup of rum, and hasn't touched a woman since we cleared Bristol harbor."

"Does he have no heart?" Ixara had asked, her fingers turning over a dry ashbloom leaf.

"His heart sits in London," Thomas lowered his voice even further. "Where his little sister lies dying. They say he’d sell his soul to the devil—or rob the entire world blind—just to keep that girl breathing one day longer."

Sell his soul to the devil...

Ixara clenched her fist. So the ruthless Viscount was no uneducated brute driven by a lust for gold. He acted from a far more dangerous motive: a devastating love. A man willing to annihilate an entire tribe on Corvane merely to save a child in London.

The hatred in her chest blazed like fire. She hated him for turning her homeland into a dead waste. Yet alongside that hatred, a shadowy curiosity began to sprout.

That man who lived by calipers and numbers, that bearer of a heart of stone... what would he look like when manipulated by her? What expression would he wear upon learning that the girl he deemed a "savage" would use her very body to trap him in an inescapable prophecy?

"Ixara, you must be careful," Jory’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. The boy had gathered his burlap cloth, his face anxious in the dim candlelight. "These past few days, Quartermaster Silas Brandt has grown suspicious."

Ixara frowned. "Brandt?"

"Yes. He noticed Thomas and the cook lurking down around the cargo hold lately. He cursed Thomas for a fool and swore there was a strange smell down here. For two days now, he’s been inspecting the crate locks himself. If he catches you..." Jory swallowed hard, a shudder running down the back of his neck. "He’ll snap your legs and toss you overboard as shark bait!"

Ixara remained silent. She knew Silas Brandt. Through the deck boards, she had heard his harsh, rasping voice—a veteran seaman, fiercely loyal to Garrick, possessing the instincts of a terrifying hound.

"I understand," she whispered. "Do not come down here too often next time."

"But if I don't, you'll starve..."

"I will not die," Ixara cut him off, her eyes flashing with a cold, steely resolve. "I have yet to reclaim what is mine."

Once Jory vanished behind the row of crates, Ixara pulled the final dried ashbloom leaf from her leather pouch.

She had to try. Over the past three weeks, she had used smoke only to peek into the sailors' memories. But she had never dared divine her primary objective: the Aurelith.

Ixara struck a spark. A faint, ethereal cloud of purple smoke billowed up. She closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath of the acrid haze into her lungs.

Hum...

A vibrating reverberation passed through her brain.

Her sight rose past the powder barrels, pierced through the three-inch oak deck planks of the hold, swept up through the berth deck, and halted in the Captain’s stateroom—the largest cabin at the stern.

There, resting upon a leather-bound cedar desk, sat a solid lead box.

Inside that lead box... the Aurelith lay trapped.

It no longer radiated the brilliant deep-blue light it possessed atop the meteorite mountain on Corvane. The thick lead shell imprisoned its energy, reducing the powerful pulse of the gods to faint, broken whispers. It was being tortured. It was being measured with cold metal instruments.

And directly beside that lead box... stood a man.

Garrick Wynmore sat before his desk, his long, slender fingers resting upon the pages of a sea chart. The candlelight highlighted the contours of his face—a square jawline, sharply defined as if carved from granite, thin lips pressed together in a ruthless line, and cold, unruffled ash-gray eyes.

He wore a single glass monocle, intently studying a brass caliper measuring the luminescence frequency of the meteorite.

He was right above her.

Separated by a mere two layers of oak floorboards. So close. Infinitely close.

That proximity choked Ixara. It was not merely a spatial distance, but the gulf between two worlds: one representing the pinnacle of rational science, and the other a daughter bearing the sacred bloodline of the gods.

One day, Garrick Wynmore, Ixara whispered in her mind as the smoke slowly dissolved, you will fall to your knees before me, aboard this very ship.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Sudden, heavy footsteps echoed from the wooden ladder leading to the hold.

Not Jory’s timid steps. These were the heavy, rapid, and merciless thuds of iron-shod boots.

"What in blazes are you doing down here so long, you little brat?!"

Silas Brandt’s harsh, raspy voice shattered the silence of the hold.

Ixara gasped, freezing as her body pressed flat against the powder keg.

Through the gap between two rice sacks, she witnessed the scene unfold:

Silas Brandt—the quartermaster with a ragged beard and ruthless eyes—grabbed Jory by his coarse shirt collar, hurling the boy roughly to the deck.

The burlap cloth containing the hardtack crumbs and the empty water flask tumbled from his coat, rolling right to the quartermaster's feet.

"Hardtack? Fresh water?" Silas Brandt bent to snatch the cloth, his eyes burning with ferocious suspicion. He raised his head, sweeping his gaze across the dark hold. "Who are you stealing ship rations for down here? Eh?!"

Jory turned pale as a corpse, clutching his head, trembling unable to speak a word.

Silas drew the short cutlass from his hip, the steel blade gleaming with a dim, cold light. Step by step, he advanced toward the row of powder kegs—directly toward the spot where Ixara was hidden.

"Come out, you little rat..." he snarled. "Before I skin you alive!"