CHAPTER ONE

THE ENCHANTRA

YEMAYA

PRESENT DAY

 

“The Alkelan are descendants of the sea god, Tidus. This is a commonly held belief among the seafaring tribes of the uncharted Northern Ocean. However, based on my observations, alkelan are more akin to the monstrous demons of the deep than any heavenly beings.”

– Fragment from the Maelstrom Archives written by Zohara Yi, 1st Magnus of the Seven Elemental Noble Clans

 

We set sail at dawn on the hunt for a god. I cross the starboard bow of The Enchantra, my eyes fixed on the brewing storm on the dark horizon. I carry a net in one trembling hand, and an alkelan bone fragment sharpened into a knife in the other, preparing for my impossible task.

Crew members bash into one another, fighting for the dwindling resources left on the ship as their fellow pirates abandon their pirate king like scurrying rats. No loyalty among thieves, as the saying goes in the sunken world.

I didn’t expect much from this rag-tag gang of swindlers and criminals anyway. Though a small part of me hoped they’d keep their cool long enough to keep us from capsizing. Instead of drowning in wistful thinking, I brace for impact and try to figure out what to do before I’m dead. The superstorm is a half-ray away if we don’t change course fast!

“Yemaya!” I jerk back, almost thrown overboard as the ship lurches left, rocking violently on the surging waves. “Do you sense the God of the Tides?”

Erick DuPonte’s booming voice sends ice shooting through my veins, the impact almost as brutal as the bullet he sinks into the skull of a screaming sailor beside me. I can feel his gaze on me as if he has a vice-grip on my neck, as I turn around and look up slowly to face him. The captain has had enough of his men abandoning their courage, and The Enchantra alike.

The nameless, and now faceless, sailor spins aimlessly before tipping forward, free-falling into the water. He leaves behind a thin sheen of blood that splatters my face and the rags I call clothing, tainting the faded azure blue and emerald green hues crimson.

I suck in a shaky breath, wondering which death will be more merciful? Sinking into the churning ocean only to be devoured alive by the monsters of the deep, or tortured, then blown away by DuPonte’s bullet?

“Devoured by monsters, of course,” I murmur to myself, shaking from head to toe.

“The next miserable lout foolish enough to abandon their duties will be fed to the sharks! And I hereby order every coward in the water shot!” the undisputed leader of the Bonesaw Pirates promises his men.

Because Erick never levies a threat that he doesn’t intend to execute. And he takes great pleasure in executing them.

As if snapped out of a spell which incited the mass hysteria that gripped the ship at the sight of the storm, the crew rushes back to their number one duty–keeping this vessel afloat. But the gods have other plans.

The booming thunder halts abruptly. Lightning bolts are snatched from the sky seconds before they can rain down terror. And the thrashing rain vanishes into thin air. We’re left gliding on calm waters blanketed by a sky so brilliantly blue it seems imagined. But I know better by now than to trust my eyes when dealing with the elements. So I close them, turning towards the distant storm, and summon my magic, no longer seeing the wind or feeling it battering my clammy skin.

I am the wind. Every current from every corner of Zaire enters me, and I them.

Gasping for breath, I whip around to face the source of everything wicked in my life with a warning, because my petty need for vengeance against DuPonte will never outweigh the need to maintain the delicate balance between war and peace with nature.

“Captain!” I shout, squeezing the handle of my bone blade, “We must abandon ship! It’s too late to course correct. Our best chance at survival is to use The Enchantra as a beacon to guide the storms further north so we may flee south!”

The look of sheer disdain Captain DuPonte levels at me would’ve driven me to my knees, begging forgiveness, six full moons ago. But I am no longer a meek servant to a false king, so I square my shoulders and lift my chin, as I shout, “We must!”

“We shan’t!” he orders, all but spitting on his men who move to obey me. “Anyone who heeds the witch’s warning will forfeit the mercy of a bullet before being fed alive to these shark-infested waters.”

I slump in defeat, for fear is more powerful a motivator than hope, especially in the hands of a tyrant who so effortlessly wields despair as a weapon. These poor, unfortunate, wounded souls bound to the captain cower away toward their duties.

Erick tugs at the rope above his head, yanking it free from the jungle of vines near the main mast, and launches himself from the crow’s nest to the bow. His midnight colored hair soars in the air, strands of gray gliding like mist. When he lands and starts marching toward me, I’m astonished by both the color and the length.

When DuPonte sold me to the sea, his hair grazed his shoulders and was as dark as his shadows. But now it flows mid-back, more gray than black. I take pride in his disheveled appearance as he jams his telescope into a fraying belt loop. I once held power over this feared pirate, as his personal servant and his weathervane. It’s time I reclaim it.

“You will use your filthy magic to guide us to the god,” Erick demands, leaving no room for argument, nearly chest to chest, and eye to eye with me.

I should be terrified of his retribution. Instead, I argue my case as if possessed by a rogue bravery enchantment.

“I have seen five hundred leagues in every direction. I see the storms from the north, east, south, and west. An unfathomable halo of destruction!” I thrust my arms apart to emphasize my plea, “We cannot survive these…”

I drift off as DuPonte’s storm-gray eyes narrow into malicious slits. I don’t say the word I genuinely want to say, as if saying maelstroms out loud will conjure them to pick up their pace. They’re already traveling faster than I can count in knots. But I know what I saw, what I became, as iridescent clouds every shade of the rainbow spiraled into the heavens above the uncharted northern ocean.

Streaks of brilliant blue, burning reds, and golden yellows, making up most of the maelstroms, blurred into one hideous gray tower of doom, as if a winged painter used their brushstroke to rob the universe of color. And in the wake of light, large pillars of darkness, wind, and seawater joined together, forming a superstorm of epic proportions.

“I see,” Erick says, and a tiny spark of hope ignites within me at his accompanying expression.

The captain has never been privy to my visions, but more than anyone has understood their truth. And genuine fear settles into the creases of his leathery skin, tanned to the point of butchery even after losing its summer shade. I expect a ruthless, greedy man like him to see reason that his imagined grudge against a god isn’t worth losing his worldly possessions.

But I suppose time has changed the captain as much as it’s changed me.

“And if we turn around, will your sea whistle return?” he asks in a measured tone.

I swallow hard, and then, with a shake of my head, seal my fate. His movements are a blur, face frozen mid-air, as if detached from his body, an imperfect blood-soaked visage like a mask. Erick’s sword severs my flesh as my consciousness flickers out like a blown-out candle. The shouts of the crew melt into nonsense as I clutch at the tattered remains of my throat, heart hammering in my ringing ears.

Erick DuPonte has finally made good on his promise that he’d sooner slit my throat than lose my magic. Oh, how I wish I’d heeded my better judgment regarding this maniac.

“Haah!” I choke on my blood, the delayed sound of my blade clattering on the deck echoing all around me.

I stumble backward, gurgling, dropping my net to try and stem the bleeding to no avail. I watch in horror as Erick stalks me until I find myself teetering on the edge of death. Madness dances in the captain’s stormy gaze, and with what little strength I have left, I shield my stomach from the tip of his blood-soaked blade.

His sneer is vicious, and if I could still control my facial muscles, mine would be just as feral. But I can’t. My lifeblood flows through my fingertips, unnaturally viscous. And now I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’ll die here, swallowed whole by the storms.

“Go for a swim, witch, and call Tidus to you. Sharks can sense a pinprick of blood in the ocean, yes? Then I’m sure the King of the Tides can sense his lover’s blood through a maelstrom,” he says, and in the next breath, I’m ascending through the air like the winged tribes, unable to scream for mercy.

But my flight is short-lived as I plummet into the pitch-black waves. The winds howl a haunting melody to my soul as I sink to the ocean’s floor. Before, when I was but a simple pearl huntress, I would allow my magic to flow into my chest and burst free from my lungs, my legendary sea whistle sonorous as I hunted for buried treasures below Arcadia’s mighty waves.

But my sea whistle is gone now. And so is my hope.

Everything is fading away, and so, I surrender. I surrender with grief in my aching heart for what is to come. As I close my eyes, I pray one day Tidus will bury my bones beside him. I pray for a reunion with the other half of my soul in the afterlife, on gentler tides, when he can forgive my betrayal.