Page 52 of Tempest

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SHE WOKE TO the taste of blood.

I bit my lip, Cat thought, her mind pulling itself slowly from the black maw of sleep. Ryman was making such an ass of himself, I bit my lip to keep from screaming at him.

Then something nudged beneath her, gentle as a cat pawing its favorite toy. The rise and fall of whatever she lay on had a rhythm, as if the thing below was breathing. It was not so warm as the air, a few degrees cooler, but not unpleasant.

And wet.

Cat’s eyes flew open to a cloudy sky and gray water, the waves no longer a line of furious mountains but a parade of calm valleys. The thing nudging her was not a thing at all but the current of the Lyrian Sea.

She jerked up to sit, the wreckage beneath her bobbing with the sudden motion. Cat yelped and froze, lest she tip her makeshift raft over entirely and plunge the rest of her body into the water. Her arms were already doused, and one leg too, but her torso had dried, stiff with salt. She could still claim modesty, even half soaked.

As if modesty mattered in the middle of the sea.

It was finally daylight, though the storm left behind a low blanket of misty clouds. A rare reprieve from the Lyrian sun. Cat squinted, trying to see through the haze. Trying to make sense of the destruction coming into focus all around her.

She was splayed across a curved piece of wood, one side pocked with barnacles, the other black and burned. Revulsion crawled up Cat’s body.

This was part of the hull, from deep below the waterline.

Terror descended and Cat raised her gaze.

The Venerable lay in pieces.

Small ones.

The edge of a gilded rail. A window frame from the captain’s quarters, its glass shattered. A few barrels floated past, sinking slowly. Rope trailed along like the tentacles of some horrible sea creature, tangled and frayed. One of the masts bobbed nearby, a felled tree, its white sail rippling across the surface as it had once rippled in the wind. A longboat stubbornly remained afloat, albeit flipped over and broken in half.

Cat sucked in a desperate, terrified breath. She tasted ash instead of salt air and nearly retched.

It was not mist moving over the surface but smoke. Indeed, pockets of flame still burned along the wreckage, feeding on what remained of the Venerable, clinging to dry wood and skims of oil on the surface.

More dark shapes took form through the thick air, arcs of wood like the ribs of a skeleton. The deepest parts of the hull had risen to the surface, too wet to burn through. It looked like a watery hell all around her, with nothing but death to keep her company.

A wet, rasping sob rose up in Cat’s throat. She clapped a hand to her mouth, blinking furiously, trying to stem her tears before they even began. The smoky air seemed to sear her lungs, but Cat gasped it down, breath after breath, trying to steady herself against a world turned upside down.

“Hello?” she finally called out over the water, her voice trembling. “Sara! Captain Quine! Lieutenant Fell!” She was desperate enough to even call for him. “Ryman!”

No one answered.

“Hello?!” she shouted again, into the emptiness, with no one to reply but the hissing embers.

Her eyes stung, her face crumbling despite her best efforts. Cat told herself it was the smoke, but the hot tears running down her face said otherwise.

What now?

It was the only question that mattered, with the Venerable sunk, the sea stretching in every direction, and Cat at the center of it all.

Alive, but still very much doomed.

There is no point in crying.

Cat shivered as the thought crossed her mind, the voice her own. But colder, harder. And correct. There was no one to hear her weep. No one to come to her rescue.

She glanced through the wreckage again.

No one but me.