Two girls shuffle their feet over the corpse, not putting in any real effort. It’s unbelievable how privileged they act, even after everything we’ve been through.
Shadows shift. I turn to the gaping hole in the hull and see glimmers of light.
“Someone’s coming!” a worried voice hisses.
The light comes closer, illuminating a face. Hope dares to spark, but when I recognize it’s one of our captors, I nearly vomit.
He enters the ripped-apart holding with another, talking fast in a language I don’t understand. I hear a few familiar words, such as: Penticar, maidens, and innocent, so it’s safe to say they’re speaking about their cargo.
After they inspect the broken hull, they leave, and a short while later, a man arrives with a bucket and a ladle. I say a silent prayer of thanks that my death won’t be from thirst.
Some of the girls plead, but with how exhausted and hurt I am, I accept the ladle and try to figure out what to do next.
If only the crash had freed the chain from the wall, maybe then we could do something, like overpower the remaining captors.
“Where do you think we crashed?” a woman named Araelya asks.
“Who can say?” Meg shrugs her shoulders.
Another woman named Nori cuts in with, “A basic understanding of geography says we’re south. If we were sailing to Vulgrim, as I’ve suspected, we have only a handful of known islands we could be beached on.”
“Well, Little Miss Littérateur,” Meg snaps in frustration, “spit it out already.”
Throughout the trip, Nori has rattled off countless facts and pieces of information with no real connection to our situation. She’d talk about wood density, metalworking, and light reflecting through glass, which has never been of use.
It looks like that’s about to change.
“At best, we’re on unexplored territory,” Nori says matter-of-factly. “At worst, we’ve crashed on Melgrim.”
My gut twists, making me wretch. Of all the places we could have crashed, tropical islands, unexplored territories, even the slaver’s sanctuary of Vulgrim, Melgrim is the worst.
As slaves, our lives could be one of labor or luxury. It’s said that for every ten slaves toiling in trenches, there is the lucky one that is revered for their beauty or some other worthy quality. Nori would have become a tutor to a notable house, whereas I would have probably ended up cleaning a privy.
But Melgrim holds no lucky chances. Not for us. Not for anyone.
Worried voices rise from the captives.
“You-you can’t be serious,” Meg insists. “That’s just not possible.”
“Okay,” Nori says.
“Well, you can’t just say okay!” Meg snaps.
“All I can do is tell you my thoughts. I can’t force you to believe them.”
Death would be better than this.
While I realize that sounds dramatic, I’m sure every woman aboard this ship is thinking the same, for Melgrim isn’t wild and uninhabited.
It’s full of exiles.
And not just any exiles. The exiles of lands my people have never reached before, that are only known through stories of traders who’ve traveled the entirety of the world.
Of course traveled men are prone to exaggeration, but one can only embellish so much, and by their words, the men of Melgrim are over seven feet tall, and just as thick around with muscles on top of muscles that are only used for one thing: slaughter. You’d think the nonsense would stop there, but they’d go on to describe their skin as being grey-blue, and so thick, no knife could penetrate it.
Reports of such men are not uncommon in Penticar. They’re said to occasionally pop up around the land, in towns, sometimes working as mercenaries. It’s said to be war paint, but some insist they’re of an unnatural hue.
No wonder many of the women aboard are hysterical. Landing on Melgrim all but guarantees that we’ll be raped, murdered, and cannibalized, possibly all at the same time.