Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 35 of 55

The words hung in the cabin like smoke. Your father lives. Elodi gripped the bench edge. She wanted to weep and shout at once, but she held still. Blackwell watched her over the tin cup. Living was not the same as found. Elodi needed more. She needed to know where the sea had swallowed him. "Then take me to him," Elodi said. "You know these waters. Point the way." Blackwell set the cup down. For the first time she looked tired, not hard. "That is the part I cannot give you," she said. "I know he breathes. I do not know where." Elodi stood so fast the otter slid from her lap. "You said you carried a debt. How can you owe a man and not know where he is?" "Sit," Blackwell said. Something in her voice made Elodi obey. The captain pulled a stool close and spoke low. "Eleven years ago he sailed past these waters. He found a woman here. She bore the same birthmark he carried on his shoulder." She paused. "A sister. One he never knew he had." Elodi's breath stopped. "A sister." "She was sick. Wasting." Blackwell's jaw tightened. "He would not leave her to die alone. So he stayed. He could not bring her home to you." She looked at Elodi's face and softened. "He spoke of you. A girl of seven who loved the stars." Damon knelt beside Elodi. She reached for his hand without looking. "And after?" she whispered. "What happened after he stayed?" "He set out for home at last. Toward you." Blackwell rose and crossed to the small window. Black water slid past the glass. "My ships flanked his. We meant to see him through. But we were outnumbered. Ships came from the dark like wolves." Her hand pressed flat on the wall. "The last thing I remember is a storm. My hull cracking. Screaming in the water. Then nothing." The cabin was silent but for the creak of the black rig above them. Elodi pictured it. The storm, the splintering wood, her father's ship lost in the churn. "So you woke on wreckage," she said. "And never learned if he reached shore." "I searched three years," Blackwell said. "Every port, every reef. I found nothing." She turned. "That is why I could not point the way. Not because I would not. Because the sea took the answer from me too." Elodi bowed her head. She had crossed the world and found a captain who loved her father as she did, and still no map, no heading, no shore. But one thing had changed. He had a sister. Somewhere a woman shared his blood and his birthmark. If that woman lived, she would know the land where Erik last stood. Elodi lifted her chin. "Then we find the sister," she said. "She is the thread. Follow her, and we follow him." Blackwell studied her a long moment. Then she nodded once. "Aye. And I know where she was born."