Eternal Gambit Read online

  Eternal Gambit

  Kelly St. Clare

  Contents

  Exosian Realm

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Thank You For Reading

  Acknowledgements

  About Kelly St. Clare

  Also by Kelly St. Clare

  Fantasy of Frost

  Eternal Gambit

  by Kelly St. Clare

  Copyright © 2019 Kelly St. Clare

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, media, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Edited by Melissa Scott and Robin Schroffel

  Cover illustration and design by Amalia Chitulescu Digital Art

  Map Art © 2018 by Laura Diehl, www.LDiehl.com

  All rights reserved.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment

  Exosian Realm

  To my youngest sister, Megan, who is assuredly a pirate.

  One

  While saving the realm from the pillars of six, many hellish things had happened, but Ebba had never actually gone to hell.

  She shuffled along, wedged in the middle of a single-file line of her crew. Her limbs felt heavy, as though sand filled them. Her eyes gritty, her breath labored as if an anchor crushed down on her chest. Her very thoughts waded through mud.

  Leading the procession were three tainted pirates she’d never thought to see again—in fact, Ebba was certain she’d killed them on Exosia.

  So far, hell lived up to its name.

  Ebba placed her hands on the cliffs either side of the crevice they walked through. The black stone of the cliff walls possessed an angry red tinge and extended so high she couldn’t see the sky . . . if there was a sky in this place. The strangled light in the crevice was just enough to make out her feet. Sand covered the uneven ground—the only remnant of the Dynami Sea on the other side of the rock wall they’d passed through. The rock wall they’d been unaware was the entrance to Davy Jones’ Locker. Here, there was no wind, no sound of sea, and no smell of salt.

  When she’d first passed through the rock wall, Ebba thought she was in another world. She didn’t know exactly what hell was classified as. But she knew they definitely weren’t in the Exosian realm any longer.

  “Do you think they’re ghosts?” Caspian whispered low in her ear.

  She half-turned to look back at him as she walked. “Nay, not ghosts.” Pockmark, Swindles, and Riot were as physically real as any of her crew.

  But dead.

  And in hell.

  Unanswered questions whirled through her mind, but one thing she knew.

  And Ebba wished she didn’t.

  An attempt to overthrow Pockmark and his two cronies had crossed her mind many times as she squeezed through the black-and-crimson stone crevice. In a passage so narrow, and with their enemies at the front, all the crew needed to do was simply turn around and run back to the entrance.

  There were a couple of problems with that, though, the chief one being that not everyone could get out. Plank had tried and failed. If leaving Davy Jones’ Locker had anything to do with whether or not a person was tainted, then only she, Caspian, and maybe Grubby had any chance of escaping. Leaving her fathers wasn’t an option, and after what the love cylinder, amare, had shown her, not even one hour ago, leaving Jagger behind wasn’t an option either.

  So they followed the tainted trio.

  “My grandfather be right excited to meet ye,” Pockmark crowed from the front of the single-file line. His cold voice echoed back through the tight passage. Despite the steamy heat, a shiver worked its way up her spine—and it had nothing to do with the skimpy blue silk shift she had on.

  None of her crew answered, and the three pirates sniggered at their silence.

  They were about to come face-to-face with her fathers’ biggest fear. A person who broke each of them in turn, haunting their minds in death for twenty years. None of her fathers had spoken since Pockmark had uttered the words: Mutinous Cannon. Not one peep. She could only imagine the thoughts running rampant through their skulls. The person they’d thought dead and gone was resurrected.

  Or had ended up exactly where he belonged.

  Her hands shook at the thought of seeing Cannon in the flesh, the last pirate to stand against King Forge Montcroix in the Battle for the Seas.

  Her entire body shook.

  With anger.

  Ebba was going to tear the bastard’s head off. She’d sat and listened to each of her fathers’ stories in turn, barring Plank, and as she contemplated seeing the unscrupulous pirate who’d done such things to her parents, all she felt was all-consuming, churning anger. That rage might not have risen to the surface before. But now, with the person who’d nearly destroyed her fathers inside and out nearby. . . .

  . . . Her anger had risen, all right.

  “Ebba, are you okay?” Caspian whispered in her ear.

  “Aye,” she said. “Why?”

  “You’re breathing really hard.”

  She switched her focus to the rise and fall of her chest. Toothless sharks, she was.

  “I’m workin’ myself into a rage,” she informed him.

  “I see,” he mused. “That rage won’t get us in further trouble?”

  Honestly, it might. Her temper only worked out around fifty percent of the time. “I won’t be doin’ anythin’ to put yer lives in harm’s way.” Not intentionally.

  She knew they had to be very, very careful.

  The pirates leading them were tainted—exactly as they’d been in life.

  Pockmark’s eyes were yellowed and streaked with blood. Riot and Swindles’ pupils were flooded black, their bodies emaciated. Their dark Malice uniforms hung loosely over their skeletal forms. Weeping wounds, like small popped boils, covered their faces and visible skin. And the presence of black eyes meant Riot and Swindles were contagious. Which was why Jagger, the immune, walked behind the tainted trio.

  He was the only person in the realm who was resistant to magic and able to beat back the taint, given time.

  “I know that,” the prince said softly. “And I’m afraid we inadvertently did that with yours. Some rescue attempt that was.”

  Ebba snorted. That was putting it lightly. If the rescue had gone according to plan, they’d be away from the Satyr and still on their quest to collect the sixth and final part of the root. Except, she had a mounting feeling the last piece was in here, so maybe they would’ve always ended up right in Davy Jones’.

  “Quiet,” Swindles snapped from ahead, rounding to peer down their line.

  Stubby, the first behind Jagger, said, “Keep yer wig on, matey.”

 
The tainted pirate ripped one of the pistols from his sash and aimed just over Jagger’s shoulder at her father’s face. The hammer was drawn back with an awful, ringing click.

  Ebba’s heart stopped as her father held up both hands, taking a step back. A tiny, terrified sound escaped her lips, and Grubby turned back and squeezed her hand, giving her a toothy smile.

  Swindles sneered. “Aye, that’s right, old man. Ye step back, like a good wench.”

  Pockmark and Riot had halted, but now Pockmark strode forward and gripped Swindles’ shoulder. “Enough. Mutinous be expectin’ us. Mercy on anyone who keeps him waitin’ overlong.”

  A dark wariness settled over Swindles’ face an instant before he released the hammer and holstered his pistol back in his sash.

  Ebba closed her eyes, chest loosening as the immediate danger to Stubby dissipated. Sink her, she hated when her loved ones were placed in danger.

  Pockmark glared at them. “When ye come afore my grandfather, ye’ll all kneel. If I see a speck o’ a wrong thought on yer face, ye’ll find a hole in yer chest in a scant second.”

  She wondered if he’d intended the words to sound ominous and threatening. To her, he sounded nervous about displeasing Cannon.

  “I can’t kneel,” Peg-leg called from the back. “I’ll never stand after. My body feels all heavy-like since I got here.”

  “I second that. If I go down, I shall require a hand up again,” Barrels added from just in front of her.

  Grubby said, “Don’t ye worry, m’hearties. I can be kneelin’ for all o’ ye.”

  “Listen to that one, lads. He’s still only got a skull half-filled o’ rum,” scoffed Riot.

  Heat crept up Ebba’s neck, but where once she’d tried to attack the Malice pirates for a similar insult, she was willing to let it slide right now to exact revenge at a later date. Plus, when the purgium had healed her father’s head injury, Grubby turned out smarter than even Barrels . . . before sustaining a second head injury.

  “Ye’ll all kneel when I say,” spat the Malice captain, whirling and pushing past Riot and Swindles.

  “That ain’t likely,” Locks told Pockmark. “But how about ye keep orderin’, and we’ll keep pretendin’ to obey?”

  His remark might’ve lacked wisdom, but Ebba felt only glee as the color in Pockmark’s face changed from a sweltering pink to a tight-lipped white. Her fathers planned to fight back. If not physically, then with sheer gall. She hadn’t known what to expect. When the beast, Ladon, first brought up Mutinous Cannon all those months ago, her fathers nearly lost themselves. She knew that since then, they’d been plagued by the pasts they’d locked away in a box. To hear they weren’t going to cower and lose themselves gave her hope that one day they’d be better. Even if the taint within them couldn’t be cured without the purgium, and even if they couldn’t bring themselves to touch veritas and lessen their taint, even then, they’d have their defiance to cling to.

  “Brave words,” Pockmark replied through gritted teeth. Unlike the other two, he had greater control of his anger, probably because he didn’t appear as tainted. “Let’s see how ye act when ye’re afore him. He’s been tellin’ me tales of yer little crew. Of how path’tic ye were. How ye cried and screamed and begged like little girls.”

  In her life, she’d seen women giggle and fawn over a man to secretly save another’s life. She’d seen Verity sending her fathers scrambling to do the dishes with a tiny narrowing of her eyes. She’d seen Caspian’s youngest sister pinch one of Marigold’s grandchildren so hard it drew blood. To her mind, if a girl was crying, begging, or screaming, the person causing it should watch their backs. Not for a day, but for the rest of their lives. Weak males insulted women to cover their fear. That was why brave men never did it.

  “Ooh, Ebba, look. There’s a sign up ahead,” Barrels said.

  She squinted past him and caught sight of the square wooden sign nailed into the stone up ahead. “So?”

  “Go on, read it aloud?” he asked.

  Ebba withheld her groan and then a grin at Caspian’s muttered ‘Are you serious?’. Her father was a tad overzealous with her reading lessons and didn’t pick the best times and places.

  And he’d heard Caspian’s comment.

  “There is always time to read,” Barrels said, sniffing. “Even when you are walking into hell.” Judging by the snapping edge to his words, the criticism on reading upset him more than their current location.

  As they drew alongside the sign, Ebba focused on the words, sounding them out quietly so the Malice pirates wouldn’t hear and laugh at her efforts. “Dah-oo. Do. Nnn-oo-tt. Do not. Ee-nn-tt-err. Do not enter,” she said, smiling brightly. That was pretty quick, too. “Oh, there be another one ahead.” Ebba focused again. “Yah-oou. You. Wuh-ill. You will.” She trailed off at the next word.

  “Surely,” Barrels supplied.

  “Nay, it ain’t,” she countered. “Shore has an ‘H’ in it.”

  “Yes, my dear. Like a lot of other words, there are two ways of spelling the same sound, and they mean different things. You are sure something will happen. Or you are rowing into shore.”

  Her head would shorely explode all over the sure in a second. With a sigh, she glanced back at the sign. “You will surely duh-i-e. You will surely die!” She put both messages together. “Do not enter. You will surely die. . . .”

  She trailed off.

  Barrels cleared his throat. “Poor reading material.”

  Just a little.

  The only material she really wanted to read was the scrapbook her fathers gifted her for her eighteenth birthday. They’d managed to save some of their belongings from Felicity. They’d secured everything in water-tight barrels and tied them to a rowboat that the kraken hopefully still towed around.

  Ebba hoped everything was still with Matey. Though, being in hell made that issue seem quite small.

  The crevice passage widened, and some of the darkness lifted—her bare feet were now visible, anyway.

  They filed out to stand upon a platform that looked down over a cavern. Ebba gasped with the others. At first glance, Davy Jones’ appeared to be on fire. But it was just the effect of the light tugging out the deep red embedded in the rock. The buried red in the black stone was akin to dark, molten flame crawling over the charred remains of wood.

  The entire cavern was made of the stuff. The ceiling, walls, and floor were all formed of the black-and-crimson stone. There wasn’t a sky in here.

  “Best get used to this sight,” Pockmark said with undisguised glee. “The Locker be yer new home.”

  The semi-circular platform they stood upon was large enough to fit four rowboats in pairs. Ebba inched up to the edge of the platform. A howl of wind blew down the passage they’d entered through. The pitch catapulted, soaring to a scream as it entered the cavern. The gust exited at a full-blown shriek that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.

  Ebba peered over the edge of the cliff face.

  A purple stream split the cavern in two, running from north to south. The space on the east side of the water was much smaller than the west. She eyed the curling steam and bursting bubbles arising from the odd waterway. Crossing a boiling river of purple water wasn’t high on her list of ways to survive this ordeal and escape Davy Jones’ with her crew and the five parts of the root in their belts.

  “There be a shipwreck down there,” Plank said, pointing.

  Ebba shifted her attention from the river to the larger western half of the cavern. Plank was right. In the far corner, wedged in the midst of towering boulders, were the remains of a ship.

  Locks’ voice was low. “Never be mindin’ the ship. Look at the people sleepin’ on the east side o’ the cavern.”

  What? Her neck protested as she whipped around to look. Ebba sucked in a breath, hearing Jagger do the same from behind her.

  There were people down there. Filthy people. They were sleeping . . . or dead. The griminess of their clothing and skin made them merge in with
the churning red-and-black quality of the ground and surrounding cliffs.

  Were these people the damned?

  Wordlessly, Ebba turned to Jagger. He had the most experience with dark things.

  . . . He was also integral to another issue that she considered just as problematic as being in hell.

  What the amare had shown her on the rocky jetty they’d walked over from Satyr Island was no joke.

  Ebba forced that aside, asking him, “What is this place?”

  She knew the name of where they were, but what were the rules? What could this place do to her, to her fathers, to Jagger, and to Caspian? What could the damned do to them? How long could they stay here before none of them could leave?

  Her breath came fast, and Jagger lowered his head to her.

  “Aye, Viva,” the flaxen-haired said. “This be a brand new barrel o’ fish. Don’t worry yer head. We’ll be figurin’ it out just like everythin’ else.”

  Was that how he saw their lives over the last months? He thought they’d gotten through all that by figuring it out?

  Despite herself, a part of her believed him. Or maybe in his confident tone. The other part that Calypso recently awakened was solely interested in Jagger’s muscles. He was bare-chested—having gifted his tunic to her on Satyr Island. All of his breathtaking tribal tattoos were on display. They covered his chest from the outer tip of each collarbone, leaping whenever he moved.

  Blow her down.

  And he smelled like bloody sea salt and rope.

  Ebba turned from him, wrapping her arms around her body.

  Being in hell really wasn’t her only problem.