Page 12 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

“What about Kit?” Jina said softly, her cheeks turning pink.

The corner of the cook’s mouth curved. “Kit is Resse’s cousin. Twenty-five, I believe. He’s been on this ship ever since his parents passed.” He picked up his bowl. “He’s a fine young man.”

“And you?” I stumbled back and found my footing as the ship lurched. “How did you end up here?”

He took a long sip from his cup, set it down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer. Instead, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

“I lost my wife while giving birth to our son. I drowned in grief and didn’t attend to my bakery shop. I accumulated debts I couldn’t pay. So I had a choice between prison or the sea.” He shrugged. “Resse needed a cook. I needed a way out. That was eleven years ago.” He picked up an egg and chewed, talking with his mouthful. “Finish your food. Resse will want the kitchen cleaned before we hit open water.”

“What happens when we hit open water?” Minha grabbed the counter as the ship rolled hard, leaning with it to keep her footing.

Before he could say another word, the rhythm of boots on the deck above changed, faster, purposeful, the low murmur of the crew rising into urgent.

Then Kit’s voice rang down from above. “Land!”

The three of us looked at each other and rushed up to the deck. We had lived our entire lives inside four rocky walls, and somewhere out there past the bow of this ship, the world was ours to explore.

Chapter Five

Juno’s port emerged from the morning haze. Behind it the city climbed, buildings stacked against each other in uneven rows, stone and timber.

I had never seen so many people in one place. They moved along the docks, small as insects from this distance, loading and unloading, calling to one another across the water. Ships of every size crowded the harbor, some battered and dark, some freshly painted, all their sails towering to the sky.

“Is that Juno?” Jina pressed closer to the edge as if she could reach land faster.

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Then why are we turning away.” Minha frowned.

I peered up the deck to ask that question. Kit turning the wheel as Resse barked an order, Brando by her side. The rest of the crew around them.

“We’re not stopping,” Minha said.

She was right. The bow swung wide and the port fell behind us as the ship turned hard to the right, cutting away from the harbor toward a dark opening carved into the face of a rocky structure that jutted out of the water like a fist.

I hadn’t seen it from the other side. It had looked like nothing more than cliff and shadow, but as we drew closer the opening yawned wider, tall enough to swallow the masts whole.

The sails shifted again, going slack as the crew moved fast above us, pulling lines, adjusting, easing the ship slower. The open sky narrowed to a strip, then to a sliver, and then the rock closed over us and we sailed inside.

Cool air brushed my skin, and I shivered, not just from the breeze but from the sheer scale of the structure. Water dripped somewhere in the distance. Every sound we made from our footsteps came back to us off the walls.

The cavern stretched in every direction, its ceiling lost in darkness, the walls lined with ships berthed side by side like sleeping giants. Torches burned at intervals along the walls, their light trembling on the surface of the black water below.

Jina pressed against my arm. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

“I believe this is where they sell us.” Minha scowled.

Resse stood at the gangplank, arm crossed, as if she had always been there. I hadn’t heard her come down from the upper deck. “Don’t just stand there, girls. Let’s get going.”

“You heard the boss,” Brando scoffed. “Get moving.”

“This way.” Kit gestured for us to follow, leading us off the ship, Resse behind us.

We crossed the gangplank and stepped onto a pebbled path, curving around the corner. Small stones shifting underfoot, the same as the cavern floor I had walked my entire life. The similarity turned my stomach. When the passage opened into a vast space that swallowed the sound of the harbor behind us, I stopped walking.

Below a wide ditch, women stood on a makeshift platform. Not raised to be seen but lowered, as if to make them smaller, and unable to escape. Above the ditch, men lined the edge, peering down with the same detached assessment Agusto had given the pearl pile at the end of each day.