All the Stars and Teeth (All the Stars and Teeth Duology) (19 page)

The beast that bursts from the water is the color of ink and moonlight. The stars catch its scales, turning them silver as it roars. I double over, covering my ears from the shriek of what sounds like metal grating against metal. Even in the worst of my nightmares, I’d never be able to imagine such a wretched sound.

The Lusca.
The legends of this beast have traveled through word of mouth, told to scare disobedient children. But no one has ever been able to prove its existence.

Probably because no one has survived to tell the tale.

The creature has eight inky tentacles with sharp, jagged hooks. Its body is that of a leech, giant and round, with a permanently open mouth it whines from. Several rows of bloodstained teeth fill that mouth, with bits of fish and squid dangling from them. I imagine our bodies will be the ones dangling there, soon.

“Where are the others?” Bastian gasps. The question hitches in his throat.

“Vataea fell into the water.” My voice shakes as I remember the horrible crack of her head hitting the figurehead. But given her gills, it’s not her drowning that I’m worried about. “We need to get her out of there before the Lusca sees her! Ferrick and I tried to—” I make a motion toward Ferrick, but he’s no longer in my periphery. My heartbeat triples as I spin around, but he’s gone. Only when I lean over the bow do I spot his red hair in the sea below as he struggles to break out of the shrinking whirlpool.

“You idiot,” I hiss at the water.

Bastian presses a hand to his chest as he watches the beast. He’s shaky, body swaying as
Keel Haul
makes a final push to break from the water imprisoning her. Only when she steadies does Bastian suck in a relieved breath and draw his sword. It looks useless against this giant beast. Laughable.

“You want to
fight
it?”

“What else are we supposed to do?” he rasps. “
Keel Haul
’s fast, but there’s no way we’re going to outrun this … thing.”

“The Lusca,” I say. I know in my bones this is the creature of the legends.

Bastian’s face hardens, but he doesn’t disagree. Everyone knows the stories.

“Ferrick jumped in?” he asks.

I nod, chest tightening when I hear the words aloud. Ferrick’s a selfless fool for jumping after Vataea, and he’s a selfish fool if he thinks he can die when our last words to each other were so cruel.

But I won’t let him die. Not tonight.

“If we can’t run, we need to drop anchor so they can get back up.” The ship rocks too fiercely, jerking as though it’s stuck in the eye of a storm. We need to steady it.

“Drop it, then,” Bastian says. “I’ll keep the beast busy.”

Without a second glance, I dash to the cathead. There’s no time to drop the two bower anchors, and they’ll take too long to haul up if we need to make a quick escape. Instead, I unfasten the stopper and let the main anchor drop. I toss the ladder for them to climb, but neither Ferrick nor Vataea is in sight.

The Lusca screeches until every hair on my body stands. Ten red, spider-like eyes stare at us from around its oversize mouth. It could easily swallow ten dinghies at once, but
Keel Haul
is thankfully barely too large to swallow whole.

The monster spots Bastian as the pirate’s sword catches the glow of the moon. He holds it in front of him, as though the thin blade will be able to do anything against a sea monster.

The Lusca lashes out with one of its hooked tentacles. Bastian dives out of the way, raising his sword just in time to counter. He gets in one solid gash before the monster snarls and withdraws its massive tentacle. The sound rattles the ship and forces me to cover my ears again. They burn as though they’re about to bleed.

As the Lusca draws back, its tentacle knocks into
Keel Haul
’s helm and scrapes against the wood. It must hit Bastian too, because he stumbles back as if struck. He tucks his left hand around his stomach and struggles for breath.

I rush to his side and put my arms on his shoulders to steady him. “Are you all right?” His chest rises and falls as he regains his breath.

“I’m fine,” he grunts. “Find Ferrick and Vataea. Get them back on the shi—”

The Lusca’s no longer looking at us. One at a time it blinks its beady red eyes toward the left, and I run to the bow to see what it’s spotted.

There’s no hiding Ferrick’s red hair in the silver water. He’s a flame in the middle of the sea, and Vataea’s shimmering rose-gold fin isn’t helping.

The mermaid’s head is down, limp. Ferrick has her over his left shoulder. There might not be a whirlpool anymore, but the waves crash angrily against
Keel Haul
, strong enough to sway the heavy ship. They slow Ferrick. His head bobs in and out of the water as he struggles to swim forward, dragging Vataea with him.

“I dropped the ladder!” I yell. “Hurry!”

But the Lusca’s already seen him. Its throat opens and its teeth wriggle excitedly, each like a dead squid with a pointed tip that drips black poison.

When it lashes its tentacles toward Ferrick, I scream for Bastian. “We need to do something!” Though I’ve no idea what that could be.

Ferrick hugs Vataea close and ducks beneath the water before the tentacles strike. The Lusca roars and draws back for another shot.

Bastian sprints toward the edge of the ship closest to the Lusca. He raises his sword above his head and waves it in the air, trying to draw the beast’s attention.

It works. All ten eyes are drawn to the shiny sword before they sink down to the man holding it. Bastian’s stone-faced and ready to go again.

“I assure you, I taste better than the guppies in the water.” There’s an edge in his voice. “Come and get a taste.”

The monster lurches forward and Bastian stabs at it again. The tentacles are thick and goopy; they catch the blade, but are too thick to slice through. Its inky blood pours from the tentacle and stains Bastian’s cheeks and hands. He rips his sword back with a grunt, dissatisfied he’s done nothing.

Except, he hasn’t done nothing. He’s given me an idea.

I need the Lusca’s blood. Or, better yet, its tentacle.

“What are you doing?” Bastian yells as I throw myself from the bow and run toward the Lusca. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“Distract it!” I grip the rigging and hoist myself onto the slippery ropes, beginning to climb aloft toward the mast. The Lusca’s attention is still fixed on Bastian. It lifts three tentacles into the air and slams them down into
Keel Haul
.

Bastian’s sent flying, his head smacking against the ship.
Keel Haul
roars as the Lusca sinks its tentacles into the ship, dragging it forward.

I wrap my wrist in the rope and swing myself so I face the beast. I unsheathe my dagger and hold it close as the ship tilts and the rigging hovers above the Lusca.

This creature is extraordinary; something of legends. If I want to beat it, then I’m going to need to be extraordinary, too.

I ready my dagger, send a quick prayer to the gods, and throw myself from the rigging. I hit the monster’s thick skin with a smack that knocks the air from my lungs. Bastian yells something behind me, but I can no longer make out his words.

The beast is slippery, with skin like a whale. There are notches and grooves in its back from where other creatures have torn chunks from its skin, and I dig my heel into one of those grooves to steady myself. The Lusca roars.

None of its ten eyes can move upward. They’re fixed in a circle around its mouth, unable to see me. Even so, it lashes one of its tentacles at me and roars when it instead strikes its own back.

I dig my heel farther into the beast’s back and fall to all fours as it thrashes. My nails scramble for purchase in any groove they can find, and I struggle to work my way out of my left boot. From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of red. Ferrick’s making his way around the ship, toward the ropes.

Bastian turns to help him, but the Lusca seizes up and throws two of its slimy tentacles in the air. They hammer onto
Keel Haul
, hooks tearing at the wood. When I squint through the haze of the mist I see Bastian grab at his chest. His strangled choking fills the air.

When the Lusca raises another tentacle, I drive my dagger into its back and finally kick my foot out of its boot. I scramble back to my feet, but without the traction from my soles, the Lusca’s skin is even more slick and slippery as it flails.

I dig my toes into what I can, desperate for what’s inside that boot.

Beneath my stockings and wedged beneath a thin layer of canvas lies the cursed necklace I stole from Mornute. I’ve been careful to keep it from touching my skin, saving it for a time where it might come in handy.

One brush of my skin against the necklace and we’re done for. But if I can slip this onto the Lusca …

One of its tentacles finally finds me. It knocks me off balance; I start to slip off its back, but grind my blade into the flesh on its side and hang on to the hilt. The Lusca’s wails are deafening.

Bastian leans over the opposite side of the ship, helping Ferrick and Vataea up the ladder. His back is turned away from the Lusca, trusting me to handle this beast alone. I can’t let these three down.

I lift my free boot and bite down on the lip of it, clenching the leather between my teeth so I can use both hands to drag myself back up onto the Lusca’s back, thankful for its massive size only this once. I keep on all fours and clench the hilt of my dagger until I catch my balance against the Lusca’s slimy skin. The beast struggles against my movements, tentacles thrashing. One of its hooked barbs finds my back and pierces through my skin. I scream against the searing burn as thousands of black dots fight to steal my vision.

But I don’t let them take it from me. I jerk my blade from the beast’s flesh as it readies another tentacle. Pulling myself up, I drop my boot back into my hands and shakily attempt to brace myself.

My chest is tight; every breath fills my lungs with fire.

Poison. The Lusca’s barbed tentacles seep with poison.

My hands are no longer my own. They’re ghostly and foreign. I see them move as I hold my boot, but the spreading poison makes it feel like they belong to someone else.

Water rains down on me, and through my haze, I slowly look up. The Lusca has every tentacle lifted, curved and ready to strike down on its own back. On me.

My hands are unsteady, but I grip my boot tightly, and though the world blurs and darkens around me, I shake the fog from my vision and wait. There’s only one chance to get this right.

I wait until the Lusca roars, confident enough to strike down with its full force.

I wait until one tentacle strikes my back again, and until another nearly slams into my face, going for the kill. The moment before it hits, I grit through the pain and throw my hands up, capturing its tentacle in my boot.

The Lusca has no time to draw back. The moment it connects to the necklace, the beast freezes. Its tentacles form a cavern above my head, and I stumble back as water rains onto my face from its lifted, unmoving limbs.

Shivers rip through me with such force they nearly bring me to my knees. I claw at any remaining strength I have and latch onto it, forcing one foot in front of the other. Step by excruciating step, I make my way across the beast’s still back and toward the tip of one of the tentacles.

The necklace has completely frozen the beast. The Lusca cannot scream as I slice through its tentacle, but I relish in knowing it can feel every inch of my blade. Its flesh is thick, and requires far more energy to cut through it than I have to offer.

But I’ve no other choice. I dig the nails of one hand into the tentacle to hold my body up as I sear through its flesh. My
breaths come in constricted gasps as the poison tears through me; I don’t have much longer. I rip the tentacle the rest of the way off and its inky blood coats my hands as I hold it.

There’s power in the Lusca’s blood. Pulsating, fierce, wondrous power. It’s strong in a mythical way I’ve never known. I’ve stopped the Lusca, but I can’t just let it sit here for someone to discover, or for something to remove the necklace before it starves out. I need to get this tentacle back on the ship and light it on fire. I need to
kill
it with my magic.

I need to get back on
Keel Haul
.

I need—

Balance is a distant thing I can no longer maintain. My foot slips on the back of the frozen beast and I grip the severed tentacle as though it might somehow rescue me. Ten red, unblinking eyes watch as I trip and tumble off its back.

My body refuses to listen as I try to reach for my dagger, wanting to use the Lusca’s body to slow my descent again. But my arms won’t unwind from around the tentacle.

I shut my eyes as the ocean swallows me whole. Water floods my lungs, and I choke on the one thing I love the most.

The sea. The waters of my kingdom. They’ll be the death of me.

I wake in a room flooded with warmth. Moonlight spills from behind open velvet curtains, and a dimmed oil lamp burns on the mahogany table beside me.

A soft mattress draws my body in, lulling me back to sleep. I didn’t mind sleeping in a hammock, but now that I’m reminded of what I was missing, I want to wrap myself between the lavish navy blankets and never come out. Exhaustion urges me to sleep for a solid week.

Maps and atlases cover the floors and walls. In the dim light, I make out one wall where clothing hangs, pristine and sorted by type and color. Coats on one side, linen shirts on the other. More men’s shoes than I’ve ever seen in one place form a line on the floor.

Bastian’s sitting in a chair, hunched over his desk. He wears only a thin black linen shirt and loose trousers, more casual than I’ve ever seen him. The definition of his arms and
shoulders catches my eye as he examines something that sits on the table. His back is to me, broader and more muscular than I realized. With how quickly he can scale the rigging and drag in
Keel Haul
’s anchors, I should have expected he’d be strong.

What I don’t expect is how much I enjoy the way the black shirt looks against his warm brown skin. I also don’t expect the thought of how his back and shoulders might feel beneath my hands, powerful and firm.

Bastian pushes away from his desk with a sigh. The Lusca’s tentacle rests before him. I remember wanting to bring it onto the ship with me, but I never made it that far. How did both the tentacle and I get here?

He startles when he turns and catches me staring. “You’re awake.” He searches my face carefully. “How do you feel? I’m sorry about your clothes. Vataea changed you; Ferrick needed to see how deep your wound is.”

I know the Lusca hit me, but I don’t remember the wound being deep, nor do I remember any blood. All I remember is flashes of tentacles, water, and eventually complete numbness.

I look down at myself for the first time, finally noticing the stiffness of my body as I try to move.

“Careful!” Bastian moves to the edge of the bed. “Ferrick was able to stabilize you, but we had to drain a lot of your blood to get the poison out. Even a Suntosan healer can’t return lost blood.” His body is tense as the skin between his brows wrinkles into lines that age him ten years. Looking at them, my head spins. I try to speak, but the words burn.

Flashes of dark, blood-tainted water slosh behind my eyes as I recall the memory of drowning. Of gagging on the sea as I fought to resurface. My throat scorches as though I’ve swallowed gallons of straight rum. I take my time until I’m able to speak through the pain.

“How bad was it?” I rasp. “How long have I been out?”

Bastian smooths a loose curl from my neck and tucks it back into place. His touch is gentle, as if too much pressure might shatter me. “Two days.” He raises his hand when I begin to sit up in protest. “Relax. This far south, the waters start to get rocky from the cold. Even with
Keel Haul
’s speed, the trip to Zudoh will take three. You need to rest.” He says the last part with a long, drawn-out sigh. “You must have a death wish, you know that? Jumping into the water with a sea monster? You were nearly killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” I try to grin, but my lips are chapped from sea salt and I grimace as they split open. Even bone tired and barely able to move, the adrenaline surging through me is undeniable. It boils in my blood and speeds my heart in a way I’ve never known.

Is this how Father felt, after his adventures? After he tamed a kelpie and chased the leviathan?

Until now, no one has been able to document proof of the Lusca’s existence.

No more getting out of bed
, Father once told me.
The Lusca will snatch you, if you do! It’ll grab your ankles and gobble you whole! He makes his favorite meal from the bones of disobedient children, you know …

In some stories, the monster was rumored to have a shark’s head. In others, it had three heads and poisonous tentacles. In my nighttime paranoia, it was an oversize beast with long, slimy tentacles made for snatching ankles, and dagger-long teeth for chomping through the bones of children. But compared to the real thing, my imagined Lusca was a puppy.

I can’t wait to tell Father that I not only faced the beast, but that I bested it. I only wish he’d been there to see.

“How did I get back on the ship?” I try to wet my cracked lips, but my mouth is too dry.

“I jumped in after you.” Bastian says it so simply, like the
answer is obvious. “It took me a while to figure out how you did it, but freezing the Lusca was genius, I admit. Though you shouldn’t have risked yourself like that.”

I tip my head back on the pillow, clamping my eyes shut in protest against the dizziness. “It’s what had to be done.”

For a moment there’s only silence. No words. No footsteps. Perhaps not even any breathing aside from my own. When Bastian does speak again, his words may be quiet, but they’re sharp as a blade.

“You really will do anything for your people, won’t you?”

I want to open my eyes and remind him I’ve already given my answer, but when I do, Bastian doesn’t look smug or angry. His face is shadowed by the oil lamp, jaw strong in his profile. He shakes his head just barely, as if to himself. “You’re a Montara; your father banished my island from the kingdom. He destroyed my home. I tried not to be a hypocrite, because who am I to judge someone by the family they come from? But still, I wanted to hate you.” His fists clench and unclench at his sides, eyes pinched at the ground like he’s struggling with some sort of internal war.

“And do you?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No, Amora. I haven’t been able to hate you since the moment we first spoke.”

I can hardly tell if the wooziness I feel is from my injuries, or because of Bastian’s words. My skin is hot, but I can’t get myself to look at him. Slowly, carefully, I reach up to take his hand. He tenses at first, but his shoulders slowly relax as I motion for him to sit at the edge of the bed.

Warmth spreads through my chest as I let a small portion of my magic work its way through me, using it to search his soul and confirm the suspicion that knots in my stomach.

On the first night I met Bastian, I thought my magic was too tired to see the entirety of his soul. But as I look at it now,
it’s still the misty light gray it was before, with the edges fading into wispy smoke that refuses to show me the rest. I see only half of him.

“I saw you during the fight, Bastian,” I say. “I heard you scream.”

He stills, but doesn’t pull away.

“The first time the Lusca struck, I never saw you get hit,” I press. “It struck
Keel Haul
, and yet
you
reacted. As if you were the one in pain.”

His eyes catch the moonlight, and for a moment they’re silver and doused with stars. He leans his weight onto one arm. “What are you getting at?”

The words are a challenge I can’t back away from. Though he’s tense, it almost feels as though Bastian
wants
me to know. I can feel it in the way his hand closes halfway around mine, his thumb brushing my wrist, practically begging me to say the answer out loud and free him from his secret. I wonder how long he’s been holding on to it.

“You said before that
Keel Haul
was a magical ship.” I lift my chin, holding his attention. “And Vataea said she sensed curse magic the moment she stepped aboard
Keel Haul
. Now that I’ve seen that magic in action, I think I might understand what one of those curses is. Every time you were hit by the Lusca, the ship reacted. Every time the ship was hit, you felt the pain. You and
Keel Haul
are connected by this magic, aren’t you?”

His hand forms a fist in the sheets. He flexes his jaw and looks out the window, at the dark sea. “What if we are? Would it change the way you think of me?”

“No. I’d want to understand.”

He grinds his teeth together, hesitant, but the words come quickly. As though he desperately wants to share them. “It’s Zudian magic, as you guessed.”

“How?” I ask. “Curse magic stays contained, doesn’t it? When I let go of the necklace, the curse followed it, not me. I wasn’t cursed permanently.”

His sigh tells me it’s more complicated than that. “Zudoh used to be the most popular island in the kingdom. It was often visited by curious tourists and people who sought potions and protective cursed charms to bring back to their own islands. About thirteen years ago, this started to change.

“Part of Zudoh wanted to separate from the kingdom,” he continues. “They wanted to expand their reach, their power, and do more than make trinkets for rich tourists. They saw a way for their magic to grow. But to achieve that, they needed a way to create curses that could last forever—by binding them to a person’s soul.”

“They learned
soul
magic?” My palms are clammy with sweat as I inhale a sharp breath. King Cato restricted it to the Montara bloodline, to protect our people from the beast he fought off centuries ago. “But it’s not meant to be learned by others. It’s the Montaras’ burden to carry.”

“And it can only be the Montaras’ burden,” he says. “That’s why Kaven had to create something new. It’s essentially
cursed
soul magic. You can’t
destroy
someone’s soul like you can with Aridian magic, but you can
curse
one.”

The room’s temperature drops ten degrees. Even with the warmth of Bastian’s hand against my skin, I shudder. “How are they still alive?” Multiple magics break down a person’s body and soul until they eventually cease entirely. Protecting people from that is how my magic even came to exist.

“I don’t know,” he admits, “but it’s the truth. Those who practice this magic can steal and curse half a soul.”

How would a cursed person even continue to exist, with half of them missing? I’d call Bastian a liar if I hadn’t seen his soul myself. “How does it work?”

Bastian’s face darkens. “First they use soul magic to access someone’s soul. And then, using their victim’s blood, they can curse part of their soul into anything. Take my relationship with
Keel Haul
, for example. Kaven cursed me to this ship; that’s why I’m forced to stay on it, and why I get sicker the longer I’m away from it. A person can’t live comfortably with only half their soul.”

I think back to his clammy skin and sharp breaths during our time in Ikae. We’d only been off the ship for a few hours. “What would happen if
Keel Haul
were destroyed? Would you die?”

Bastian shakes his head. “I’d survive, but it wouldn’t be a life worth living. I’d become a shell of a person, empty and void. I’d desire nothing but my broken soul.”

My head spins as I try to process this. “And what would happen to
Keel Haul
if you died?”

“As much as I love her, this ship is nothing more than a ship.
Keel Haul
holds part of my soul, not the other way around. Should I die, she’d go back to being a normal ship, no longer bound to anyone. I feel what she feels, as my soul is within her. It doesn’t work the other way around; nothing of her is within me. I can use our connection to help sail her, but that’s the extent of my power over
Keel Haul
.”

My skin cools with sweat. “Can everyone in Zudoh do this?” Because if they can, how does he expect us to win this fight? One drop of blood, and our souls would be as good as gone.

Bastian shakes his head, voice taking a defensive edge. “The last I heard, only a few practiced this magic. It started off as a small group, brought to life by the son of the island’s leading ambassador—Kaven.

“What you need to understand is that our magic isn’t meant to be like this,” he continues. “It’s meant to be protective. To put wards on your house so that you can sleep easy at night, or dissuade children from touching things that may
be too dangerous for them. Things like that. But Kaven broke away from this style of curse magic and formed something dark and new, and if you’re not with him, you’re against him.” When Bastian speaks of his home island, his words are passionate. Yet cool sweat licks my throat, my body sick to its core. Kaven isn’t a simple opponent. He’s a wielder of an unheard of new magic, which makes him dangerous.

“Why wouldn’t my family do anything about this?” I ask. “My father wouldn’t stand for such a twisted magic.”

“Your father was the one who declared Zudoh’s banishment from the kingdom, when their intention to learn soul magic became clear. He took Suntosan healers off our island, and cut us off from trading. He probably thought they’d never manage to learn it—that this mess would sort itself and they’d come back begging to be a part of the kingdom again. But he was wrong. This magic has divided Zudoh, and the island is in a crisis. The Montaras are the reason my people are struggling.” His grip relaxes on the sheets as he peels himself away.

The ship stirs with the same discomfort that claws at me, swaying uneasily against even the smallest waves. It is not the confident, magical ship I’m used to.

“How long has half your soul been cursed to
Keel Haul
?”

Bastian tries to smile, but it withers as the weight of the truth hits him. “Since I was a child. Zudoh’s a small island, so there was no hiding from Kaven. I was young when he tried to recruit me, promising kids he’d teach us magic like it was a shiny new toy. My parents wouldn’t let him have me, so he had them killed and took me away—as he did with every child he could get his hands on—to study cursed soul magic. I never learned it, though.”

I shiver. I never imagined this level of evil. Murder and stolen children? Cursed soul magic? This is what Father turned his back on?

Why? All this time cooped up on Arida, practicing our magic—was it because he’s that afraid of starting a war?

“Before he was killed, Father had been teaching me to sail, and after a year of being forced to study under Kaven day and night, I knew his ship was the only way for me to escape. For a week I snuck food and supplies aboard, and then one night, when I thought everyone was asleep, a few friends and I made our escape. Only, Kaven must have been hiding there, waiting. He killed the others, and to show everyone what he was capable of should they disobey him, cursed me, and ripped away my magic. The moment I touched the helm, my soul ripped in two and bonded to
Keel Haul.
But he made a mistake, and didn’t think through cursing me to a ship. I commandeered it and escaped before he could stop me.”