Page 36 of The Stolen Crown

When the other men chuckled their amusement, Mira followed. I saw the twitch of her fingertips, the flush to her neck, but she painted a grin over her lips and laughed. “If it is tradition, then I would love to hear this dangerous tune.”

I frowned. She did not. She was lying.

Of course she would. The woman was made of games and jests. Perhaps she appeased the crew merely because she wanted to play the benevolent ally for Livia’s sake.

I did not want The Summons to be sung, not on my deck. There were certain shanties meant to be avoided. In some folktales, danger followed when specific words were uttered on the sea. True or not, the fear of the songs made them not worth the risk. Spells and curses and dark seas were enough to leave sailors believing horrors lived beneath the tides. Some we could not see.

Still, there was a part of me that wanted to know if my vicious princess would have the spine to hear it out.

I didn’t stand in the crew’s way. Not this time.

A wild melody began with the harp, followed by tapping feet. The tune was met with a distant rumble of an angry sky. Chilled sea air sent a gust whipping through the sails, as though the seas knew the forbidden nature of the tune.

Finally, the thuds of drums and pipes and screeching voices began the forbidden shanty.

One night in rain, three fishers began

A journey through tides, gentle and slow,

But at the sea’s end, black mists did descend

And swallowed these fishers below.

Mira buried her unease and clapped her hands to the tune of the myth.

Fight they did through dark and din

Till appeared the riches foretold.

“What fortune,” they think, but upon the brink,

A blade kissed each on their throat.

Another angry grumble from the heavens broke over the thud and hums of the foreboding shanty. Mira laughed when a crewman spun her around, mocking the lore as a tale to frighten arrogant sailors from testing the tides.

When I was a boy, Stormbringer always insisted his maj used the song to describe the rare ship-breaking storms that could rise on the outskirts of the kingdom.

Seemed more logical.

In truth, the risk of rough seas was partly why Livia wanted her fellow earth fae royals to travel with experienced sailors like me.

I’d lived my life on the Ever Ship; it was the one place I always felt free. There’d been no true place to hide from Harald’s cruelty and degradation. But on the ship, for a little while, I could fade into the crew. I could bask in their mightiness, their shanties, their bond.

They always let me. No doubt many of them knew how much my own father despised me, so they kept me out of sight while we journeyed.

But once we made berth, there was little they could do if Harald decided he had need of a few bones to break.

Familiar tension from darker times knotted in my chest. I lit a paper smoke and drew in a long breath. It was in that same moment Mira took hold of Boneseer’s knobby hands, tugged the man into the center of their little gathering, and danced.

The others barked and grunted their laughter, plucked strings, whistled into their pipes, and pounded the beat of the tune with their boots or palms.

I drew in another breath of smoke. The burn, the ash, the woody taste heated the back of my throat.

Mira stumbled over Boneseer’s bulky boots and fell against his body. The princess laughed again, but louder, freer. I was almost certain she snorted.

Unbidden, the corner of my mouth twitched up.

“It be rather pleasant havin’ such a lovey as her on board. Never thought I’d say such a thing.” At my side, Seableeder materialized and leaned over the rail near the helm, gawking at the pleasantries below. He snatched one of my smokes and used the end of mine to light his own. He blew out a long puff before speaking again. “When our queen took the throne, thought me world was spinnin’ upside down.”