The Crimson Sea: MM Romance in a Dark Fantasy Thriller [Adventure Cover] (Relict Saga Book 5) by J.A. Skald

Author:J.A. Skald [Skald, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Suncatcher Press
Published: 2023-10-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AY 988 — aboard The Siren’s Cry,

deep in the belly of the beast,

somewhere in the Södra Sea

The effect of the explosion wasn't instantaneous. Not with a beast this size, a heartbeat that slow. But soon enough rode the rippling aftershocks hard on action's heel. The roaring of the waters as they poured in from above abruptly halted; the gullet no longer forced it open by the beast's internal hydraulics pumping through whatever passed for its veins.

Fidriván startled at the hand that landed so suddenly on his arm. Sarlena cleared her throat, but when she spoke, he could hear the same thickness to her voice that he knew would be in his own.

"Come now, Fidriván," she rasped. "The crew… They should know what happened here."

He nodded, unsure if she could see the motion but unwilling yet to trust his words. She must have climbed up to him. He wondered if she had been calling for his attention; wondered for how long. He tried to ask, but… He couldn't make his mouth form the words. He let them die on his tongue unsaid. It wasn't important.

The phosphorescence surrounding them was starting to dim. Soon it would be extinguished completely.

They couldn't stay here.

He remembered little of the climb back down; a vague image of Sarlena tying her rope around the bowsprit; the two of them abseiling down far more quickly than they had made the journey up. Fidriván's rope was still safely attached between the derelict and The Siren's Cry and they swung themselves carefully across.

He vaguely remembered reporting to Kiven, Captain Lissa's second mate and now acting captain of the ship. Remembered how the man's face had gone pale and the muscle in his cheek jumped as Fidriván recounted the events. Felris's death they already knew of, but not what had led up to it.

Certainly nothing about Captain Lissa's final mission.

Their dead — those that could be retrieved, anyway — they laid in one of the lifeboats of The Siren's Cry. For others, a memento took their place.

"Come, Cranes," Kiven said thickly, his voice breaking on the traditional words as he spoke them into the hollow silence. "Can't any of you sing? Sing now, and fly our siblings home!"

Someone began to clap the beat. The remaining Cranes raised their voices in haphazard song as they tucked locks of hair and whatever other trinkets they had managed to find into the small boat.

Carefully, they lowered it into the water. Navigating it around the jetsam that bumped up against the ship's hull had been tricky. But in the end, they succeeded in getting it far enough away to keep it from being a fire hazard to the rest of the ship. They had enough bad options before them at this point. It seemed necessary to add 'burning to death' to the list.

Someone had attached a candle in a lantern to the boat's prow. A target Sarlena used now to aim her arrow, its blazing tip setting the small craft alight.

At that signal, the assembled Cranes called out the response in unison.

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