1
Lately the stars are dim, but that’s never stopped us before. The purple hours stretch across the sky just like they did the hour my mother named me Violet. The ship, our ship, the Moony, sways and bucks just like it has all twelve years of my life. The sprawl of the navy sail ripples quietly as the Windthreaders stir the breeze.
But still, there’s a weight in my stomach. I can’t put my finger on it as I sweep a braid away from my face, staring hard at the tides.
“Why does today feel so different?” I mumble to myself, the waves rising and crashing with my thoughts.
“Well, maybe,” says a deep, gravelly voice as I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I don’t let the voice finish. My fingers slip instantly to the small steel blade at my hip as I wheel around, tossing it into the air in a flashy arc and catching it in my opposite hand.
“Whoa there, Little Fish.” My father’s silver smile flashes like the blade. “It’s just me! Please don’t let this be the mutiny that finally takes me out.”
I relax and feel the blood rush to my cheeks, scowling at his teasing grin. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”
“It’s my ship; I can definitely afford to do some sneaking!” Dad shrugs. “Now, are you planning on sheathing that? Or is this gonna be a very different father-daughter conversation than I thought?”
I bite my lip and sheath my knife. “Don’t you have steering to do, Old Man?”
I stare up at the sky, looking for the signal flare from Mooneye and Sunshower at the stern.
Dad claps his hand to his chest in a mock wound. I roll my eyes. The crew lets him play too much; he already has command of the Moony, so I don’t see why we all must suffer through his comedy, too.
“Always in such a rush. There will be plenty of Passengers to save when you’re captain.” Dad squeezes a callused brown hand on my shoulder. The Mark of the Scythe—the dim blue tattoo indicating his status as the ship’s captain—gleams on his mahogany forearm. “Speaking of Passengers, can you go find Moss? We need to start getting the newly rescued souls below deck so the Pointers don’t—”
He stops when he sees my mouth twitch down at the corners. He doesn’t need to explain to me why we must get the souls below deck quickly. We Reapers of the Five Heavens aren’t the only force on the Tides of the Lost. Our sworn enemies, the Children of the Shark, are what became of the Chainmakers when they fell from their ships during the Storm at the Edge of the World. The fanged ghost-shark hybrids, who we call Pointers for short, are drawn to the souls of Passengers.
Dad notices my silence and frowns as he stares at my sword belt. “Your mother would have been so proud.”
I try to laugh it off, but my voice sounds a little hollow. Today must be even stranger than I thought: Dad never brings up Mom unprompted. Not since the day she was killed fighting what Dad says was the biggest Pointer he’d ever seen. Pointers don’t drag Reapers down into the water like they do with Passengers. But if they stab you, you’re gone, forever. And you never become a Passenger.
Ever since Mom died when I was seven, on their last mission together, I’ve been at Dad’s side as his honorary first mate.
Sometimes the Children of the Shark attack ships, but mostly they try to capture souls the moment they reach the Tides of the Lost, before we Reapers can transport them to safety in the Five Heavens. It wasn’t too long ago, on my first mission, that I saved Moss from a pack of Pointers when he first crashed down into the water. I still remember the sickly gray-green light bubbling up from below.
Actually, that’s a really good question. Where is that little trick-of-the-light anyway?
I want to tell Dad I can handle more responsibility. I can fight better than most of the crew, and I can navigate, and I can tie any knot faster than everyone but Gourd, his actual first mate. Plus, the first three times Dad transferred the Mark of the Scythe to me—so I could feel the flow of the magic that holds the ship together—we only almost crashed once. That’s, like, 2:1 odds, maybe better, that I’ll be the greatest Reaper captain the tides have ever known! Just because I’m a kid on a ship doesn’t mean the only other kid on the ship is all I can handle.
But all that has to wait.
The sky splits with lightning as the tides churn beneath us. Three balls of pulsing blue light zip out ahead of the ship as Sunshower’s arrows signal to the crew that we’ve arrived to answer the call. Every Reaper ship has a Tidewatcher that helps the ship navigate to Passengers before the Children of the Shark can snatch them down to their lair in the Depths. Reapers have petty rivalries among ourselves, including differences of opinion in what it even means to be a Reaper, but at the end of the day, we all want to get the Passengers to safety. We just have different approaches to how we use our magic to do it. Sometimes we get in each other’s way, and that’s how Passengers can get lost in seconds.
As if the tides could hear my thoughts, I squint at the horizon and see the outline of the Shard Reapers’ ship, the Stormblade, which is at least twice the size of the Moony. The Reapers of Shard dye their hair white as starlight to honor the Passengers. And they are extremely powerful Stormcallers, but sometimes it can really make things difficult for everyone else on the waters when they—
Thunder booms, and I roll my eyes as a towering wave of water crashes over the bow of our ship.
“YOU’D THINK THOSE DYE-HEADS WOULD LEARN TO AIM THEIR MAGIC, BUT NOOOO.”
No Reaper ship is a bigger pain in the neck to deal with on a mission than the Stormblade.
“VIOLET!” Dad calls, his eyes glowing a faint cobalt blue that matches the glowing Mark of the Scythe on his forearm. “Get to the Ropers, now!”
I’m already spinning on my heel to go secure my rope with the other Ropers. Dad maneuvers the Moony closer to where I can see a huddle of Passengers struggling to stay afloat in the water, crying out, confused, and far from the reach of the Reapers of the Stormblade. I want to swing in and rescue them, but then I see a familiar sickly gray-green glow spread below the water near us. A foul smell bubbles up around us like a smile stuffed with rotten teeth. All the sound rushes out of my ears as I watch a hook shoot up from the water, landing heavily and punching into the deck of our ship. The chain behind it pulls taut with a rusted scream.
Just like that, we are being boarded by the Children of the Shark.
Copyright © 2024 by Julian Randall
