Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

Author:Zin E. Rocklyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tordotcom

PART V: IMPRINT

“GET HER AWAY FROM ME!”

“Iraxi, please!”

“No!”

“You must calm down!”

“Take her below! Infection is imminent. Wrap the child, Xira; keep her warm!”

“No! Throw her to the depths! Leave her for the razorfangs. She will kill us all!”

Amit had not fled from me but had gone to find help. He’d arrived with more onlookers than assistance, Hirat commanding the scene once he surfaced. Nonetheless, my panic bested him and his attempts to mollify it. When Ket arrived at his side, betrayal fueled my panic. Moving quickly, she cuts the tie between me and the child.

“She is a daemon!” I insist as two men take hold of my legs. I kick at them, shove them off. My strength is remarkable, considering my insides are falling out of me. “She will destroy us.”

“Is there anything to calm her? We cannot take her below like this!”

“Remove the child, I said! Bring her to the bottom; she must be fed!”

I shut my eyes against the chaos, wish for stillness, wish for the fate of my dead birthingfolk in labour. But I hear the child’s cries and terror fills me again. My eyes fly open and my limbs resume their desperate thrashing.

“Kill her! Fling her to the seas of which she belongs!” I plea desperately. I hear several clicking tongues, admonishment and disgust all at once besting their justified fear of the darkness. They find comfort in judgment until the first screech pierces the air.

Razorfangs.

An elder’s arm is snatched clean from its socket before anyone moves towards the hatch. I holler into the dark, the call unrecognizable to mine ears. Yet it encourages something. There is a great crash from the condemned end of the boat, the sharp crack of splitting wood pausing eavesdroppers’ need to flee. They all stare above me, beyond me and my bleeding body. Their eyes widen and I feel the air rush past us, the stench of death and salt heavy within it.

I close my eyes. Breathe deep. And I feel it.

I feel the height of it, the oil-slick plume of its hide. The insatiable hunger.

My jaws snap shut just as the razorfang releases a call, a guttural, nasally squawk trilling the sky so loudly, every living thing deafens, muffled into a ringing silence.

And the razorfang begins to stomp.

“Below. Now.” The remaining passengers jolt awake. It is Hirat who commands this, and no one disobeys or hesitates. The larger of the two men who’ve wrangled me throws me over his shoulder, a grunt his only complaint as gore soaks through his clothing.

We descend quickly, the wall of a man barreling our way down with hardly any regard to those ahead of us. People trip and others assist, but the line between selflessness and chaos becomes thinner with each rushed step. Ket is behind us, asking questions I can barely hear. The child is not with her, yet I can feel its nearness, its readying breath as panic begins to boil over around us.

She, my child, she screams. A short burst, yet full, encompassing.

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