Isla Rhea

There weren´t always dragons in the Valley.

There wasn´t always doubt in his heart.

But as the faith would have it … Captain Edward Kinsley didn´t know what he was looking for. Not at first, anyway. He imagined an underwater kingdom where sharks were the navigators and people were the followers. As the sea would have it, it was more complicated than that. Maybe the twelve seas were too vast to rule and needed a reminder that no ruler was better than an autocratic one.

Because Kinsley realized that being a king was not a job that could be inherited here as it was on land.

Stay focused.

He had lost his compass years ago. Well, more like threw it away. His first mate thought he´d gone insane, for what is a captain without a sense of direction? Or a goal? The dirt behind his fingernails grew harder. The steady motion of the Lioness rocked them from side to side as if she was summoning a peaceful slumber.

Everything around him was beginning to cease. His ship, his crew, his life. Maybe he could return home. Abandon the search. Become a monk. No. He had no home.

Bonnie was usually the one on the receiving end of his anger. But she never complained. Anger was the last remaining proof there was a living being behind the mask of stoic suffering in this man.

Maybe that´s why he despised death because it took senselessly and gave nothing back. And he despised people who left this world out of their own volition even more. When they weren´t faced with an impossible choice, just picked themselves over the person they loved. And so a collision occurred in Captain Kinsley, where opposites he couldn´t reconcile personified in the one person he´d become addicted to. That he´d shut down for. And the minute he decided to live again, the embodiment of his beating heart materialized in a form of hope.

The clear starry sky suggested a calm voyage, but he knew that would change, soon. Some laws of nature could be broken. Especially if one had the right tools. He placed a hand on his hip, the tips of his fingers roaming the pockets of his vest where the compass used to be. The moment he heard the wooden parquets squeak under the weight of Bonnie´s boots, he made sure to keep his hands on the rudder instead.

He was sure it was Bonnie, no one else had a penchant for sleepless nights in the crew as much as she, although the reason behind her insomnia remained a secret. At least to him. She took a gulp from a bottle of Bourbon she had snagged from Svalbard´s port pub. When Kinsley reached to take the bottle from her, she held it at bay.

“No, liars don´t get any alcohol.”

“Now when have I ever lied to you?”

Bonnie chuckled, acknowledgment of a game they both played when honesty was out of the question.

Kinsley watched her red hair clinging to her forehead, watched her side profile as she was looking to find something on the horizon, something she had lost. Sometimes Kinsley thought that Bonnie had agreed to be his first mate just because they had both lost something and they were lesser people for it. In a world where human life meant as little as a brown leaf worn down by the autumn that sucked all vigor out of it, twenty-two-year-old Bonnie Carmel traded sand beaches and turquoise water for black seas and a brooding partner in crime. From her perspective, it was a good deal.

“Three months on the edges of the realm in the port of nowhere, and now you are sailing us to the most guarded island in the world. Makes a girl wonder what your ulterior motives are, Captain.”

Kinsley shrugged, hoping to become one with the darkness of the night if it meant Bonnie would stop asking. He always dressed in black to match his hair and eyes, even though he wasn´t officially in mourning for five years now.

It used to hurt a lot more. Bonnie´s presence evoked an irreparable sadness in Kinsley that would circle back to all the stored joy he used to revel in whenever it got too much and he had nothing but memories of happiness. But the truth was that he was running out of supply. And Bonnie was too valuable a companion.

“I like their rum,” he bantered.

Bonnie handed him Bourbon. “The Valley has always been a mystery to me. Why would the guard follow every visitor when its soil is mostly ashes and death?”

“You are much too young to remember but Isla Rhea used to be the most vibrant place in the realm.”

“Are you looking to join the charity and help restore the island that´s been burned down to a crisp by the revolt of a few beasts?”

Kinsley buried his face in the bottle. Bonnie´s straightforwardness tingled his nerves. No, it wasn´t fair of him to hide things from her, to sail them to danger and unpredictable circumstances, but he was the Captain. The Lioness had been his ship for as long as he could remember, long before the Dragons were put down, long before specks of grey suggested he was entering middle age. Plus, no one dared to challenge him.

Peripherally, he noticed she was trying to stare him down like a hungry wolf until he´d feed her with a proper answer. He directed his eyes towards her pendant instead.

“You still pray to him, Neptune?”

Bonnie clutched the trident by instinct. “He was a good friend to you.”

“That he was,” Kinsley replied without hesitation, without allowing silence to creep in between his words and let Bonnie wonder, let her put two and two together.

He wasn´t just a friend.

She wouldn´t. It was too farfetched an idea even for a girl as intelligent as she to entertain.

Until the Lioness suffered a major blow to the keel that would have sent Bonnie flying to the ground had she not been leaning against the rudder with her elbows, hooking her in. Kinsley held on as well, not quite panicking but cautious.

“What the hell was that?”

“A whale?” Bonnie guessed.

Another blow, this time it could be felt across the Quarterdeck.

“That is one angry whale,” Kinsley shouted when he almost tipped over.

The crew started gathering above the deck in a frenzy. Bonnie quickly organized them, barking others to the twelve men to pull it together.

Kinsley stabilized the ship, or so he thought when another attack threatened to put a hole in the hull.

The sea level rose, and the wind picked up the tempo when Bonnie screamed her lungs out to start tacking to the boys on the mast.

The peaceful night turned into terror. There was not a single cloud in the sky, no whim of nature attacking the ship.

Kinsley would have ordered Bonnie to look over and find out what was attacking them if he already didn´t know.

They must have been close.

The ship steadied, no sign of their attackers, whoever or whatever they were.

Silence descended upon them, the kind that was more chilling and unsettling than any noise could ever induce.

The waves were beating against the ship in a steady, stern motion that was meant to lull them into thinking they were safe. Kinsley had been through this many times before. He had fought creatures and encountered beings that were deceitful at best and cruel at worst.

Bonnie climbed the shrouds, and pushed Mr. Lindsey out of the way on the way to the top.

Kinsley watched ahead as she watched both sides of the ships with frantic expectation, gripping the ropes until her knuckles turned white.

Kinsley knew that the lie behind the voyage would explode eventually. The crew knew the course, but they didn´t know the purpose.

And then again, he didn´t anticipate the blockade as far out the island.

Kinsley heard it. The cry of an army he had long forgotten. And his crew heard it too, long before Bonnie utter the words.

“Sirens …” she said woefully as she jumped down to stand beside Kinsley.

“Since when are they guarding the island?”

“They´re not,” Kinsley said, the first truthful statement in a while, “they are here for me.”

A strong punch of at least three tails in a coordinated attack resumed the chaos and the fear that the flock would sink them.

“Can we outsail them?” Bonnie asked, terror in her green eyes really guilt-tripped Kinsley and his resolve. She was fearless, except when it came to Salacia´s servants. One of the secrets she kept close to her chest. He was sure they were going to have a conversation about trust later – if they were ever to survive.

“No,” Kinsley whispered.

They were not going to outsail them. Sirens needed to hear him say it.

“Strike the sails.”

“What?” Bonnie grabbed the collar of his coat as best as the awkward angle let her.

“We need to show respect, strike the sales, Miss Carmel,” he said authoritatively.

Bonnie followed through when the crew gathered together, awaiting hell.

If the Lioness was operable by two people, Kinsley would have never endangered the lives of twelve innocents. Alas. This was bigger than twelve human lives.

Should the air become heavy with fire and smoke and obliterate their lungs, it would be worth it.

The attacks ceased. As did the angry sea.

The ship was surrounded by a bright blue light shining from underneath. Kinsley waited for the crew to run amok, maybe jump overboard with panic. But that´s not what happened. Bonnie stepped closer, looking around to be ready for an intruder.

All they heard was a symphony of voices speaking collectively as if from one consciousness.

“Captain Kinsley,” they sang. “Change your course. You will not find what you are looking for.”

“What are we looking for?” Bonnie asked no one in particular. Sirens were not the sharing type, something they had in common with Kinsley. Whatever purpose there was to the voyage to Isla Rhea, Kinsley relied on Bonnie´s sense of adventure rather than her suspiciousness to ask any questions. And, well, it was long ago. No one would expect a pirate to be sentimental.

“Turn your ship around. Return home.”

“I don´t have a home,” Kinsley said to himself. But they heard it. They might not be the sharing type, but their ability to see inside a man´s heart made them as empathetic as a monster could get.

“What if I refuse?”

“Then Queen Salacia will make sure you won´t see another sunrise.”

There was silence as the ship came to a halt. With the wind leaving the sails and the sea denying cooperation, Kinsley witnessed not only his good sense but every proof of natural laws abandoning them in the middle of the Gorgian Sea.

One of the sailors who joined them at Svalbard, the one Kinsley commissioned himself, asked what they were going to do now that they had fallen out of Salacia´s good graces.

Bonnie seconded the question, pressed and pushed but Kinsley remained silent and withdrawn until there was only him and Bonnie left alone on the deck.

“Oh my god,” she said, nearly tearing apart her blouse full of stains. “You are looking for a dragon´s heart. You want to bring him back. That´s why Salacia sent her Sirens, as a warning.”

Kinsley could tell that Bonnie considered running away. Despite the reputation of a hero, he had a knack for running too, just not the kind that would make one a coward in the eyes of good society. The kind that used to break Neptune´s heart.

“I will find an answer on the island.”

“Oh, come on, Edward!” Bonnie hit the rudder with her hand hard, damaging the soft tissue of her palm. A single stream of blood came oozing out of the least protected vein. She ignored it. “What possessed you?”

"Someone at the Svalbard Port told me it was possible to raise the dead. All you need is a dragon´s heart.”

“Someone? Did that someone have your best interests in mind? Because even if it was true, even if Isla Rhea guarded the last beating heart of a dragon, the kind of dark magic that you could unleash would surpass any gratitude Neptune could display upon returning to the land of the living and to his throne.”

There was a lot of exhaustion injected into her words as if she was saying that they had been through it before. That a connection between a human and a superior being was impossible and could not end up in any other way than in mutual destruction. Kinsley did not fault her for thinking as much, there was a lot of evidence to support her argument. There was also the blood of superior beings circulating in her family, just not the kind that would challenge the Goddess of the Twelve Seas.

Unlawful Goddess whispered his conscious. The prickly little thing would not let him live, would not let him sleep, no matter how many times Bonnie had told him that Neptune´s death was not his fault.

He got distracted, she would say. And Salacia had always aimed for his throne.

Kinsley tried to forget. Except that all the major ports of the Continent were stacked with fishing ships that could not sail because Salacia would not grant a good tide. She hated humans and tried to starve them, one city after another.

Except that he felt guilty when the beggar woman dressed in rags with skin barely hanging off of her bones told him that there was a way to restore Neptune to his throne.

How could he not try? Even if dragons were killed because their hearts turned black and burned the sacred island to the ground shortly before Salacia pierced Neptune´s heart with his trident. There was hope. And there was a map in the pocket of his vest where his compass used to hang.

“If we don´t do this, Salacia will bring her underwater kingdom to the surface and have her army engulf the Continent. Superior beings do not care for human lives.”

Bonnie shook her head in disbelief. “But pirates do?”

“This pirate cares about one life.”

“I´m guessing you don´t mean mine, otherwise you wouldn´t have thrown me into a lion´s den.”

“This is a lion´s ship,” Kinsley said, determined and guilt-free. He was sure the guilt would creep in eventually and he would have to push it out again until the task was finished. Until he´d see Neptune´s wide blue eyes shine brightly with life again.

“We don´t even know where she buried him, Edward,” Bonnie argued.

Kinsley smiled devilishly. Because it wasn´t a no, and a yes would mean nothing without a teasing maybe in between.

“I know where he is buried.”