Shadows of the Lost Sun, Page 2

  “The Kraken doesn’t have any deckhands.”

  CHAPTER 2

  A Few Extra Hands

  Fin blinked in disbelief. Twenty, maybe even thirty, sailors moved across the deck as if they belonged there. It took a lot of effort to look that effortless. Fin knew—he’d done the same thing a million times himself.

  But style wasn’t the only thing he had in common with the invaders. They all had olive skin, dark hair, rounded features. Features he recognized from the fragments of his earliest memories, back from the night he first arrived at the Khaznot Quay when he was a child.

  They were the features of his mother. The same features he saw every time he looked in a mirror.

  These people looked like him.

  The revelation twirled around in his stomach, fear and awe and hope and confusion all mixed together as one. Heart pounding, he spun to face the rest of the Kraken crew. “How long have they been on board?”

  Ardent frowned. “How long has who been on board?”

  Fin resisted the desire to roll his eyes. “Them,” he said, flinging an arm toward the sailors.

  “Oh.” Ardent’s forehead pinched. “We seem to have been boarded. When did that happen?” he asked Coll.

  “Um,” Coll said.

  Marrill and Remy glanced at each other, slow embarrassment creeping across their faces.

  Fin raised an eyebrow in alarm. “You don’t know?”

  Remy shrugged. “I remember talking to someone earlier, but… it just didn’t seem that significant.”

  Ardent tugged on his beard. “Powerful magic must be at work here. And yet, I would have sensed that. Whatever is causing this, it isn’t magical.”

  Fin sucked in a breath. Ardent had said the same thing to him when trying to explain Fin’s own forgettability. That confirmed it. He turned to Marrill, his eyes wide. “Marrill, they’re like me! These are my people!”

  “A traitor, I knew it!” Ardent snapped. “I mean, I didn’t know it. I don’t know you. But you seem a treacherous sort, now that I spend some time with you.”

  “Hush, Ardent,” Marrill said. “Fin’s our friend. He’d never betray us.”

  Fin flashed a smile of thanks at her. But as nice as it was to be championed, it didn’t answer the many questions bubbling up in his head. His thoughts raced out, stumbling across one another until one made it through. “What are they doing here?”

  “I’d like to know the answer to that myself,” Coll said, a sharp frown creasing his forehead. He pushed himself from the doorjamb and strode confidently out to the center of the deck. The rest of the Kraken crew followed.

  “You lot,” Coll barked. “Explain yourselves. Now. And don’t leave out the part about why I shouldn’t just throw every one of you in the brig for boarding my ship without permission.”

  Ardent cleared his throat and stepped forward, taking charge. “What the good captain is saying is…” He frowned, looking at the newcomers and then back at the crew as though struggling to remember. “Welcome aboard?”

  “That’s not what I was saying at all,” Coll corrected.

  “It wasn’t?” Ardent asked.

  “I…” Coll’s mouth hung open a moment. And then he closed it, scowling. “Maybe?”

  “You were asking them to explain themselves,” Fin reminded them. Ardent and Coll both looked at him, the usual fog of forgetfulness clouding their expressions.

  Fin threw up his hands in exasperation. “You, with the braid,” he called, pointing at a thin rail of a man who’d been flashing his mirror from the bow. “Yes, you. Don’t duck away. I can see you. Still see you. Still see you.”

  The thin man straightened and crossed his arms. But it wasn’t he who answered. A girl stepped out from behind him, her long dark hair framing her wispy features.

  Fin recognized her instantly.

  He’d only run into her once before. Or rather, she had run into him, fleeing from guards in the musty, squishy streets of Belolow City. But he was sure it was her. After all, before today, she was the only person he’d ever met who was like him. Running into her had given him hope that he wasn’t alone. That there were others like him, others who might hold the answer to finding his mom.

  This girl may have been forgettable, but he couldn’t possibly forget her.

  She beamed at him. “Brother Fade,” she said, stepping toward him. “It is you!”

  Fin narrowed his eyes at her cheerful greeting. They hadn’t exactly parted on great terms; she’d framed him for her own crimes and fled the city. And then there was the small matter of the silver bracelet he’d swiped off her wrist in the process. Which she of course hadn’t noticed, what with Fin being a master of thievery.

  Then again, her presence on the Kraken strongly indicated she had picked up on it at some point.

  At his side, Marrill leaned close. “You know this girl?”

  “Of course he does,” the girl chirped.

  Fin crossed his arms, trying to appear nonchalant, as though his heart wasn’t beating like a herd of giraffalisks. Whether she was here for the bracelet or not, she was here. A million questions raced through his head, but he swallowed them all. Knowing how desperate he was for answers would only give her the upper hand.

  “You owe me a Puff-Decoy,” he told her. “I had to use my last one getting away from those guards who were after you.” The girl threw her head back and laughed. Fin felt a smile of his own twitching at his lips. “So what brings you to the Kraken?” he asked her. “Uninvited, I might add.”

  Her expression sobered. “We came for something, Brother. Something very important to us.”

  Ardent stepped forward. “Lovely!” he announced. “A negotiation it is. Coll, fetch my ransoming hat. Marrill, brew up some bargaining tea.” He cupped one hand over his mouth. “Make it strong,” he whispered.

  All the sailors laughed together. “Oh no, friends,” said the thin man with the braid. “We don’t make bargains.”

  Ardent sighed. “Thieves then, is it? Very well. Make that my ransom-taking hat.” He narrowed his eyes menacingly. “And cancel the tea.”

  “Guys?” Next to them, Remy tugged at Coll’s arm. “Did the music here always have drums?”

  Fin paused, listening. Sure enough, a steady drumbeat danced through the melody of the straits. Something about the rhythm was familiar to him. It made his mouth go dry and his gut clench. His heart seemed to fall into the same pattern, the beats short and fast.

  Marrill pointed off the port side. “I think it’s coming from that direction.”

  Fin spun just as the dandelion stalks bent aside in the distance. The prow of a great ship hove into view, fluff scattering on the breeze in its wake. She was bigger than the Kraken, broad and ribbed and rigged for battle. Fin couldn’t see the mark emblazoned on her side, but he didn’t need to. He already knew it was there.

  A dragon beneath a wave-filled circle. The same sign he’d seen on the girl’s ship back in Belolow. The same sign he’d seen in Monerva. The sign of his people.

  The sigil of the Salt Sand King.

  “We’ve got company!” Coll shouted. Without hesitating, the captain sprinted for the quarterdeck. “Ropebone, pirats, full sail!” he bellowed as he spun the wheel to put the oncoming ship behind them.

  The ship’s rigging sprang to motion all by itself. But just as quickly as they started moving, the ropes snapped to a screeching stop. Everywhere Fin looked, the lines had been tied together, tangled into elaborate knots, secured in the wrong places.

  So this was what these “sailors” had been up to, he realized. They’d crippled the Kraken so this new ship could overtake her.

  Fin spun toward the forgettable girl. She smirked at him, an eyebrow raised. “Sorry, Brother,” she said with a shrug. “But we can’t let you leave. Not until they arrive.”

  Fin’s eyes darted to the knotted lines, tugging and testing themselves. The boarders had tied the Kraken up good. Good enough to disable just about any ship.

&n
bsp; But then, they weren’t on just any ship.

  “Oh, looks like no one told you bloods,” Fin said with a laugh. All around them, ropes slithered to life, untying themselves in a flurry. Sudden confusion danced across the girl’s features. “A few knots are no match for the Enterprising Kraken.”

  Pirats galloped across the deck and through the rigging, unsecuring and resecuring lines. The boarders jumped after them, trying to keep the ship under control, but it was too late. Behind Fin, Ardent raised his hands and, with them, the main sails.

  Dandelion seeds filled the air as the Kraken jumped to life, crashing through the stalks of fluff. Fin snatched one, twirling it between his fingers as he swaggered toward the forgettable girl. He pointed it back at the menacing vessel chasing them. “Bad breath of breeze on that one, jog. Seems we’re going to miss your connection after all.”

  The oncoming ship was already losing ground. It was fast, no doubt. Just not Kraken fast. The girl’s smirk faltered. She didn’t seem to know what to say.

  “New plan, brethren. Retreat and regroup!” the thin man with the braid called, waving his hand in a circular motion. The fake crewmen swarmed to one side of the ship. Two of them swung a coiled rope ladder over the railing to a small getaway boat lashed against the hull below.

  The girl stepped back, moving to join her compatriots. “Time to go,” she said, waving Fin after her. “Come on, Brother!”

  Fin blinked. She was looking at him like she expected him to join her. “Come on? I don’t even know you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  She tilted her head to the side as though trying to fit a new piece of information into an existing puzzle. “But… I can’t just leave you. Not after we’ve been looking for you all this time.”

  It wasn’t easy to render Fin speechless. But the forgettable girl had succeeded in robbing him of coherent thought once again. He opened his mouth and closed it twice before finally getting out, “For me?”

  She blinked. “Of course. Don’t you get it, Brother? We came here for you. Your whole family has been looking for you for years!”

  Fin’s legs seemed to have suddenly been replaced with jelly. “I have a… family?” His heart tripped unsteadily. The words sounded foreign in his ears.

  “Come on, Sister Fade,” the last of the crewmen yelled, slipping over the side. “We’ll find another way on another day.”

  “Hold up!” the girl cried back. She grabbed Fin’s hand. “Of course you do! Didn’t you know? Didn’t your mom tell you who you are? Didn’t she tell you about the Rise and the Fade?”

  Fin could barely even shake his head. “My mom left me at the Khaznot Quay when I was four. I’ve been searching for her ever since.”

  Her eyes widened in confusion and then concern. “Oh, Brother Fade,” she said, placing her other hand on top of his. “The Khaznot Quay? That’s where you’ve been all this time?”

  There was a shout from below. “Time to go!” called the man with the braid, waving for her to hurry.

  “Wait!” Fin protested. She couldn’t leave. There was so much he didn’t know. So much he wanted to ask her. “What did you mean, ‘all this time’? Who are you, really? Where do you… I… we come from?”

  “Come back with us,” the girl urged, tugging him toward the ladder. “We can answer everything.”

  Fin’s heart jumped. He’d been searching for answers for so long. And here they were, just a few steps away. He glanced across the deck of the Kraken.

  Coll and Remy stood on the quarterdeck, one holding the wheel as the other called out orders. Ardent stood behind them, his long white beard and the tip of his cap flapping wildly in the wind. “Faster, faster!” he called, like a kid on a playground. Marrill was laughing, chasing Karny across the deck as he leapt and batted at the floating white tufts filling the air.

  With the forgettable interlopers forgotten and the pursuing ship now hopelessly behind, they seemed to be genuinely having fun. No one was missing him. He could easily slip away.

  Then Fin snapped back to his senses. Marrill had given up her chance to go home to her family after they’d defeated the Salt Sand King, just to help Fin find his mom. And she still needed to help her own mom. He couldn’t abandon her.

  “I can’t.” Fin’s voice broke. He swallowed. The thought welled up inside him before he even had time to think it over. “But… why can’t you stay here?”

  “Me? Stay here? I…” The girl looked back to her people. Below, the tiny getaway boat crashed against the Kraken’s hull as it bounced along in the larger ship’s wake. The girl bit her lip, face scrunched up in concentration.

  As suave as Fin wanted to be, it all dropped away in that moment. He’d been searching for his mom his entire life. He didn’t know much about this girl and her people. He didn’t know whether he could even really trust her. But she was like him. The only person he had ever met like him. And she knew where he came from, how he got here; she had come for him.

  “P-please?” he stammered.

  “Last chance, Sister Fade!” the braided man called from below.

  “Well…” She bit her lip again. “I did let you get away once. When I ran into you at Belolow—I didn’t even realize who you were until I was back on the ship and we’d sailed away. So… I guess I owe it to you not to let that happen again.” She nodded, as if convincing herself. Then her lips spread into a huge grin. “Okay, I’m staying!”

  She turned and called over the side of the ship, “I’m staying, brethren! Tell the Rise I’ll keep him safe!” She immediately tugged free the ladder, letting it drop toward the getaway boat below. The rope exploded into a riot of skipping stones as it splashed into the raw magic that was the waters of the Stream.

  The girl turned back to him. The smile on her face was excited and nervous all at once. Fin knew exactly how she felt.

  “Make a wish,” Marrill said, coming up beside them. She held out a big dandelion puff in front of him.

  He couldn’t help laughing. “Shouldn’t we be done with wishing after what happened in Monerva?”

  She giggled. “No, silly. It’s what you do with dandelions where I’m from. You make a wish and then blow the seeds into the air. If you manage to scatter them all, then your wish comes true.”

  Fin glanced at the white bit of fluff and then over at the girl. A girl like him. The key to his past. To who he was.

  He was pretty sure his wishes were already coming true.

  CHAPTER 3

  Our New Friend, What’s-Her-Name

  The Kraken sliced through waves, the drumming trailing off as they left the menacing ship far behind. Marrill cupped the dandelion in her hands and closed her eyes tight. I wish my mom weren’t sick and my parents could be here on the Stream with me, she thought, before blowing and watching the bits of fluff float away on the breeze.

  If you’d asked Marrill six months ago if she believed such a wish could come true, she’d have laughed. But that was before she’d met Ardent and set sail on the Enterprising Kraken. Before she’d learned that magic was real. Now, even the impossible seemed within reach. Just the other day she’d been holding a real live wish in her hand, in the form of the orb from the Syphon of Monerva. Sure, using that particular wish would rain down living fire and creeping metal on the Stream. But still—if she could find an orb that granted wishes, she could find something else equally as powerful. If she stayed on the Stream long enough, Marrill would figure out a way to fix her mom.

  She allowed herself another moment of indulging the daydream before pushing the thoughts aside and turning back toward Fin. She blinked in surprise to find a girl leaning against the railing beside him. She looked to be about their age, with dark hair and olive skin.

  “Hi, I’m Marrill,” she said, giving the girl a small wave.

  “Check it out, Marrill!” Fin said with a grin. “This is the girl I told you about, the one I met in Belolow who’s like me! She’s going to stay with us and tell me all about where I came from and help me fin
d my mom!”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in. But as soon as she realized what they meant, Marrill jumped in the air and clapped. She couldn’t believe it. The mysterious forgettable girl had been their only lead and now here she was, just appearing out of thin air. “Fin, that’s amazing!”

  “Fin?” the girl asked, staring at her weirdly. “What’s Fin?”

  “That’s his name, of course,” Marrill said. “What’s yours?”

  The girl turned and tilted her head, seeming not to understand. “I… my people… we don’t really have names. I’m just Sister Fade, like all my other sisters.”

  “Ohhhh,” Fin said. “That’s why you call me Brother.”

  Marrill waved her hand. There was no way this girl could stick around without a name. “Well, that’s ridiculous. Let me think.” She put her hand on her chin and squinted. “Fin is Fin because that’s what was written on your file at the orphanage, right?”

  “Orphan Preserve,” Fin corrected. “And yeah. FNU LNU. First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown.”

  “FN. Fin. And she’s like you, only a girl… a forgettable girl… F… G?” Marrill snapped her fingers as it came to her. “That’s it. Fig! We’ll call you Fig!”

  “Fig,” the girl repeated softly. Her lips curled into a smile, and she looked away, almost as if she was embarrassed. “I… like it. Thank you. I’ll remember that. Even if you won’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marrill laughed. How could she possibly forget this news?

  Just then, Ardent strolled toward them, a sheaf of papers in one hand. “Ah, there you are, Marrill. Now that we’re good and under way, we really should discuss Margaham’s Game. We will have to play to even speak to Margaham about anything of substance, and there is significant strategy involved, so…”

  “Ardent!” Marrill started, turning to introduce the newly christened Fig. “This is—”

  Ardent waved his free hand. “Yes, it’s a bit annoying, I agree. But I suppose every wizard is entitled to his eccentricities. Better an elaborate game than a moat of skinnerwogs. Now if you’ll take a look at this diagram from the last time I visited…” He shoved the papers toward her.