Pain. Life was full of it. So was my body.
“Ouch!”
I flinched away from the source of the trouble. It was a wizened old woman with a scowl on her face and a rag soaked in disinfectant in her hand. Her other hand held my arm as strongly as any vice.
She leaned forward and squinted at the gash on my arm. “You did a terrible job.”
“I didn’t have your good brandy,” Marc quipped from where he stood beside the mantel.
Baba twisted her head around and narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t need a good brandy to have clean rags.” She pinched the cloth she’d removed from my wound between two fingers and lifted it for his viewing pleasure. “This isn’t clean.”
“It’s the best we could do without supplies,” he countered.
She wrinkled her nose and tossed away the offending thing. “Galivanting about, going to the theater, and fooling with those young scamps.”
“I did enjoy it,” I spoke up.
Marc smiled and bowed his head to me. “Thank you, Rose.”
Baba wagged a gnarled finger at me. “Don’t encourage that scamp. He’ll be taking you to the Corveth Verge before you know it, and then you’ll be lost.”
“We’ve already been there,” Ramaro spoke up as he lifted his head from the cushioned chair close beside me. He stared into the fire that crackled in the hearth. “Not much there, really. Just a lot more islands with some rude birds.”
I laughed. “I think that sounds like a nice change in pace from what we’ve been doing.”
Baba plucked a fresh bandage from the table beside her and wrapped my arm tightly. “That would be the wisest decision to let your wound heal.” She paused and cast a sharp look at Marc. “Which means he’s not going to do it.”
He folded his arms over his chest and grinned. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Baba.”
She scoffed and finished her work. “Whatever you have planned, make sure you don’t go playing too much with those Managers. Three is a sight more than you’ve ever managed.”
“I handled four once,” he countered.
Baba scoffed as she stood and shooed him away from the hearth. “That was when you had that fellow with you. The one with the beard.”
His face fell a little. “Yes. That was quite the unexpected turn.” He pushed off from the mantel, and his smile returned as he looked me over. “What do you say to a short walk?”
“Don’t be gone too long,” Baba called out to us as she took up the ladle that hung on the side of the hearth and stirred the concoction in the cauldron. “Soup will be ready any time now!”
My stomach tried to race out of the cottage faster than I, but not quite as fast as Marc. “We’ll be sure to arrive at the right time,” he answered as he shooed me through the front door.
Ramaro darted through our feet and down the path. “Yeah! Right after it’s dead and gone!”
“Speaking of dead and gone,” Marc mused as he took my unwounded arm and led me onto the street. “What do you say to visiting Morgan?”
I furrowed my brow as I tried to recall that name. “The pirate’s grave?”
“That’s the one. I can’t leave here without paying my respects.”
“How long do you think we’ll be here?” I wondered as I swept my eyes out toward the sparkling port and the vast ocean beyond that. The sun was only a faint glow on the horizon and would be gone in less than an hour, at least according to my reckoning.
“We should have all the supplies stowed away by tomorrow.”
“That’s more than the last time we were here, isn’t it?”
“Double the amount,” he mused as he grinned down at me. “The men ate quite a bit during their vacation at the capital, and there’s no telling what troubles we’ll have in the future that will keep us away from friendly ports.”
“Are there many of those? The friendly ports, I mean.”
“Here’s Rynek, of course, and the easterly edges of the Corveth Verge have more.”
“What is the Corveth Verge? Baba mentioned them, didn’t she?”
“They’re the fondly nicknamed ‘last wilderness of the sea,’” he revealed as we walked up the gentle slope toward the cemetery. “All the other areas were explored centuries ago, but very few people have gone beyond the Arches of Eryndor to the west and into those dark, unmapped waters.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Why not? What’s there?”
“Gods and monsters.”
“Really?”
His eyes twinkled at me. “You saw the Wraithcourrier’s tagalongs, and you still ask that?”
I shrugged. “I thought maybe you guys were joking when you said they were gods. I thought maybe they were some sort of sea creatures.”
“It is hard to tell sometimes.”
“How do you tell?”
“If it tells you its a god, it usually isn’t.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’d be careful what I said around it. They don’t like to be mocked.”
“Do you know that from experience?”
“Well, I have ventured past the Arches a few times.”
My attention invariably traveled up to his eye patch. “That’s how you got that, right?”
His smile faltered and he brushed his fingers over the cloth. “I haven’t told you the story yet, have I?”
I perked up. “No. Will you tell it to me now?”
“No.”
My face drooped. “Why not?”
“Because he just has to keep it to himself,” Ramaro spoke up as he trotted along beside us. “Even I don’t know what happened to him in those dark waters, and if Baba knows, she’s not telling.”
“I swore an oath to keep this power a secret,” Marc revealed as he stared ahead and pursed his lips. “And I never break my oaths.”
I looked over his tense face for a moment before I nodded. “Alright, but I’d still like to know more about these arches and the Verge.”
He smiled at me. “That I can tell you to your heart’s content, but wouldn’t you rather see them?”
My eyes flitted between the two. “Is that safe?”
“Sailing isn’t safe,” Ramaro reminded me as he lifted his snout. “That’s just the way it is for sailors of any breed.”
My reckoning of what was left of the day was a little off. We reached the ancient graveyard at the same time the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The long shadows now became the norm as the world fell into darkness. We reached the tall headstone of the infamous pirate and found the ground around the base covered in as many bottles and scraps of paper as our last visit.
Marc held out a slip of paper to me. “Care to make an offering?”
I accepted the paper, and an idea popped into my head. I wasn’t sure where it came from, but I had a strong feeling about it. “Do you think he’d mind a little song, too?”
“From you, no.”
I knelt and set the slip of paper on the foot of the stone. A cool breeze blew over me as I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. My lips parted, and a soft sea shanty flowed out of me. I didn’t even remember learning such a slow, melodious song.
Oh, the salt wind howls through my tangled hair,
I haul the ropes with a widow’s stare,
The sea took my love, left me bones to mend,
But I’ll sing him home where the waves don’t end.
I started back when smoke burst out of my paper. Marc grabbed me and hefted me to my feet, while Ramaro’s tail flicked behind him. “What have you done?”
I shook my head. “I-I don’t know!”
We watched mesmerized as the smoke cleared, revealing lines etched by fire into my scrap. Ramaro inched up to the parchment and squinted before his eyes widened. “This looks like a map!”
My heart leaped up. “Really?”
Marc slipped around me and plucked the paper from the ground. He examined the lines for a moment before he turned to me, surprise on his face. “This is a map of the Verge. I recognize the Arches of Eryndor.”
My jaw hit the ground so hard I swore it bounced. “You-how-why-huh?”
A crooked smile slipped onto Marc’s lips as a faint glow came from under his eye patch. “It looks like you’ll get your wish to visit the Corveth Verge. A pirate can’t resist a chance to search for buried treasure, especially when the offer is from Captain Morgan himself.”
I lifted my wide eyes to the headstone as another chill breeze wrapped around us. Had he been who told me the song? What was hidden on the map?
I was about to find out, and we weren’t the only ones who would find an interest in the captain’s legendary buried treasure.
