Fable (Fable #1)(16)
“Look, I’m going to go ahead and give you some coin before you steal it.” Paj reached into the pocket of his vest, pulling out a single copper.
Willa leaned against the foremast, watching.
Paj held the copper up between us, pinched between his fingers. “This is what you want, right?”
I gritted my teeth, trying to read him. Wherever this was headed, it wasn’t good. And with their helmsman off ship, this crew would take liberties.
He snapped his fingers and the coin flew into the air, over the side, before it plunked into the water below.
“How deep are we, Auster?” Paj didn’t look at him as he asked it, his smug gaze still set on me.
Amusement lit on Auster’s face as he answered. “I’d say about four hundred and eighty feet. Maybe five hundred.”
Hamish’s spectacles scrunched up on his nose as he lifted one hand to smooth the combed, sandy hair at his brow. “Guess I was wrong, Paj. Looks like there are some things a dredger won’t do for coin.”
Willa still stood silently behind them, the look in her eyes different from the others. It was more curiosity than suspicion. As if she could hear me thinking it, her head tilted to the side.
They were trying to put me in my place. Trying to degrade me. Because with traders, everything was a test. Everything was an attempt to measure you.
I met Paj’s eyes as I pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it on the deck.
“What are you doing?” His brow pulled as he watched me climb the railing.
I stood against the wind, watching the movement of the water around the coral islands. It pushed up the shelf gently, and if it was as calm beneath the surface as it was above, I could do the dive in just minutes. I’d made deeper descents more times than I could count.
Hamish leaned over the starboard side as I jumped, falling through the air before I plunged into the cold water in a cloud of bubbles. When I broke the surface, all four of the crew were watching from above, Paj’s eyes wide.
My chest filled with the warm wind, and I pushed it out in a long hiss over and over until my lungs felt pliable enough to hold the air I needed. I tipped my head back, sipping in just a little more before I dove, kicking toward the seafloor.
The ash-white coral above the water was only the corpse of what lay below, where steep walls of the vibrant reef were filled with life. Bubble coral, spiny sponges, and urchins covered every inch beneath schools of colorful fish, and I watched the airy climb of an octopus scale the shoal as I sank down.
The surface stopped tugging at me once I’d dropped deep enough, and I let myself drop with my arms out around me, falling between beams of sunlight casting through the water.
The Marigold shrank to a dark spot far above me, and I watched the silt for the shine of copper, kicking in a circle as I neared the bottom. Challenging me to find a single coin on the seafloor had been an arrogant ploy meant to humiliate me. But these bastard traders didn’t know me. Or what I could do.
Copper was a mineral, not a gemstone. But it had a language, like anything else. I stilled, listening for the tinny ring of it. I sifted through the sounds of the reef until a faint resonance made me turn. A flash lit in my peripheral vision, and I blinked, turning to see the sparkle play against the light. But it was too far from the ship in these clear, still waters. The coin should have fallen through the water in only a slightly diagonal path.
I turned myself around, studying the fronds of coral swaying back and forth gently. And it hit me, sinking in the pit of my stomach, just as the pull of the water brushed the bottom of my feet.
A current.
But it was too late. The tide swallowed me, yanking me down and jetting me over the seafloor like the tow of a ship. I kicked, trying to break from its grasp, but it only dragged me faster. The coral raced by and a stream of air slipped from my lips as I screamed, my hands sliding over the bottom and kicking up a trail of dust in my wake.
The Marigold pulled farther away from me, and I twisted, searching for something to grab as the current slammed me into the reef.
The coral scraped across my back and over my shoulder, tumbling me over the ridges before I found a hold. The cold water rushed past me, pushing my hair back from my face, and I pulled myself up. My muscles screamed, the weakness deepening in my limbs until my hands were shaking on the holds. My skin was already on fire, where the poison of the coral was seeping into my bloodstream.
I pulled myself along the wall until I was out of the current, and clung to the shelf, trying to force my heartbeat to slow behind my ribs before it ate up all the air inside of me. The undertow had carried me at least a hundred feet and I would need to surface fast.
I kicked up away from the grasp of the tide, but a soft glimmer on the seafloor made me stop, my fingers clutching to the sharp rock. I looked up to the Marigold above, cursing, and another bubble of air wriggled up through the water. I wasn’t going back up with nothing.
I crawled back down, holding on to the reef until I was back in the current, and inched along until I reached the place I’d seen the flicker of light. The stream pushed against me as I raked an open hand into the sand, and when I brought it back up, the current pulled the grains through my fingers until the coin was sitting in the center of my palm.
The ladder was already unrolled when I broke the surface and I gasped, my chest aching with the feeling of the bones caving in. I pulled myself up the rope rungs and dropped myself over the railing, where the crew was still waiting.