Saint--A Novel by Adrienne Young

Author:Adrienne Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

17

SAINT

I didn’t sleep on nights I could feel a storm coming.

The ropes creaked around me as I tightened the fastenings at the corner of the sail, leaning back into the lines at the top of the main mast. The heels of my boots were wedged into the joint of the boom, suspending me in midair over the deck far below.

It was pitch black, the air like ink around me, but far in the distance, a tiny flicker of white light had my hackles up. I couldn’t see the wall of clouds drifting toward the ship, but I could feel them. Like a silent giant creeping over the water.

The sea was restless. The shapes of the waves weren’t the smooth calm we’d seen that morning. I watched as their peaks sharpened and danced, a sinking feeling settling in my chest. No, the sea wouldn’t sleep tonight. Neither would I.

Another frayed knot of lightning tangled in the sky, spidering down until it touched the horizon. I guessed we had an hour before it was on top of us. Maybe less.

The ring of grommets on the foremast behind me pulled my gaze from the distant storm and I looked back to see Clove fitting himself into the rigging. Once he was balanced, he pulled on his leather gloves and got to work, wedging an iron rod into one of the knots so he could retie it.

It was a job we wouldn’t have entrusted to the deckhands, even if they’d stayed. No one knew the weak joints of this ship like Clove and I did. Put your life in the hands of a vessel enough times, and you developed an intuition about those things.

This was the point when most helmsmen would break from their coordinates and head to the nearest port. But I wasn’t most helmsmen. With Zola making his way toward Ceros and the clock ticking on my next meeting with Henrik, we didn’t have time to spare.

“Was going to let you sleep a while longer,” I said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Clove unraveled the rope, letting it fall slack into the air. “You know I don’t like to miss the fun.”

Really, he just didn’t like me out of his sight when a storm was bearing down on us. We both knew just how quickly your fate could change in those moments. How, in a blink, the sea’s hands could reach up and take what it wanted.

“You checked the deck when you boarded the ship at port.” I didn’t ask it like a question but that was what it was.

“I did.”

I knew he did, but I needed to hear him say it. I’d checked it myself too. I always did.

A gust of wind hit us, and I glanced again in the direction of the storm. The air was bitterly cold, a sharp contrast to the warm, balmy breeze that had been pushing us to Ceros. But I wasn’t sure why that made me nervous.

My hands moved faster over the ropes and I ran my thumb along the stitched seams of the sails, checking them for gaps or loosened threads.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.