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Suddenly, the Stormsinger’s song went shrill. The snow around us scattered on a new, feral wind and Fisher and I snapped to attention.
Defiancecame into sight directly ahead, listing to her side and far too close. She’d runaground—ona great mountain of ice, black-hearted and indigo blue.
“Brace!” Fisher roared. “Hard starboard!”
The helmsmen threw their weight into the wheel.Hartheeled, but it was too late.
HartrammedDefiancewith a deafening crunch of wood. The windows ofDefiance’s stern shattered, she gave an ominous moan, and bodies toppled from her tilting deck into the sea.
The waves dragged the ships apart again. Fisher and I staggered and, for an instant, I thought we had slipped past. Then another wave smashed us back intoDefiance.
This time we hit her broadside. I braced as the decks of the two ships came level and, there through the snow, I saw Benedict trying to pull a woman to her feet against the backdrop of the iceberg’s bruised heart. She was the Stormsinger, limp and unresponsive.
A line gave way with a telltale crack. My eyes shot up just asHart’s andDefiance’s mastscollided—sparssplintering, lines tangling and snapping. Sailors scattered while others simply vanished in a blinding whirl of snow.
“Hold fast!” Fisher shouted, and I echoed her words. Both our gazes were fixed on the masts, waiting to see if they would separate, or simply destroy both ships. There was not even time to worry about the mountain of ice.
Fresh wind gusted and another enormous wave struck.Hartbegan to pull free, but the rigging was too entangled. A groan rattled the deck, then there was water everywhere. It broke over us in a tide, knee-deep even on the quarterdeck. Midships, brave sailors held fast to their lines and one another as the sea tried to sweep them away.
“Cut us loose!” I bellowed to the crew at the same time as the bosun’s whistle shrilled and Fisher shouted, “Get us free!”
The deck leveled, water poured through the scuppers, and the crew leapt to obey. They scrambled up the shrouds like squirrels, darted along yards and began to slash strategic lines, untangling others with cautious urgency.
Hartswung free just as another titanic wave hit. The world, blurred, tripped, and was swallowed by frigid water. Through that water, I felt more than heard the mizzenmast give way with a final, terrible crack.
I hunkered against the rail, totally submerged in frigid, lung-crushing water. My instincts screamed to push off and swim, but lines and sails were all around me. Up was a sideways thing, gravity skewed by the force of the waves.
I felt something hit the rail at my side and grabbed it instinctively. I felt flesh, soft andicy—Fisher?No, too big forFisher—thenthe water retreated. I had just enough time to snatch a breath of air before it closed over us again.
Time lost all meaning and the Other crept close. Visions and memories assailed me, some old, some new. I recalled the day I had seen Fisher drown in another storm not so long ago. I glimpsed Mary’s face, her damp hair in disarray, facing John Randalf in a darkened hallway. I saw Lirr, setting a ship aflame against a backdrop of barren rock and swirling snow.
Hartleveled out and water rushed away. Spluttering and gasping, I found myself clutching the helmsman, Kennedy, like a muscular doll in a world of unexpected, rocking calm. The sky above was still a haze of blowing snow but the waves had given way to gentle swells. The ship listed under the fallen mast; we were still afloat. For now.
Around us, low islands and dense swaths of ice spread as far as I could see. It was already dusk, though we had entered the Stormwall mid-morning.
“We made it through.” I let Kennedy go, suddenly weak. I looked for Fisher, but spared the sailor a searching glance. “Mr. Kennedy, are you well?”
“Yes, sir,” he panted, sitting back and staring across the ship. “Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure,” I rasped. I turned salt-stung eyes across the deck and pushed myself to my feet. The other helmsman was collapsed against the wheel, holding on for hislife—asituation reflected in a dozen others. Only a dozen, though. There ought to have been two dozen on deck. And Fisher.
Panic momentarily blinded me. No. Fisher could not be gone. The vision of herdrowning—Ihad thwarted it, I had saved her. That had been another day, another time.
“Captain Fisher?” I called, hoping against hope that she would appear from a hatch or behind a web of tangled rigging. She did not.
I staggered from one rail to the other, searching the water for survivors. But there was no one in sight. Waves rippled, ice drifted, and the Stormwall raged on at our backs.
My throat thickened. “Can anyone see the captain?”
“Nay, sir!” someone called.
“She went overboard, sir,” the other helmsman said with a voice raw from shouting and the cold. He coughed and met my eyes, his creased with horrible certainty. “I saw her fall, Mr. Rosser. The waves took her.”
All sound faded except for the beating of my heart. One-two. One-two. Blood thundered against my temples, laborious and stilted, and my breath was gone.
Fisher was dead, and I was in command.
Part of me wanted to despair, to grieve and curse. It turned in upon itself and pulled a curtain closed. The part that remained was numb and empty, a void where only fact and action remained.
