A Pirate for the Dead Goddess (Legends of Rahasia Book 2)

Chapter Four

TEN YEARS LATER

SEVENTEEN YEARS AFTER THE DIVINE WAR

            "Another first mate died today. The dice rolled skulls on their own again. The poor sot was pitched overboard once right before we hit port." I sigh, sipping a cup of nasty turmeric tea, avoiding the witch's gaze as we sit in her ramshackle hut. "Are you sure you won't take the job, Farzaneh? A witch as first mate. Doesn't that sound grand?"

            Farzaneh looks at me. Eyes glass-green. Skin sun-brown. Rust-dark hair curling off her shoulders, a red cloak worn through no matter how hot it gets on Akua.

            To hide her chains.

            "Last time I was on your boat was when they exiled me from my own witching coven and sold me to Akuan traders. I was pitched around those quarters from all that choppy navigating that I got a headache for months after." She pours more disgusting tea for me, watching with cruel glee as I'm forced to sip at it, trying my damndest to keep it all down. "You're a good pirate, Lucky. You're a terrible sailor."

            "At least I freed you from the merchants."

            "No, don't pretend you're a hero." She rattles the manacles on her wrists, showing me the gleaming vials that match the color of her eyes, sloshing around with potent red liquid, blood. "We struck a deal, Lucky. I'd make your potions if you told the Akuans the deal was off, and that I'd be moving to Akua to live out my days as a simple healer. Here's your medicine, by the way."

            She hands me one of the blood vials, and I press the knife-sharp stopper to the inside of my wrist. With a hiss, Farzaneh presses it down, injecting the serum into my veins.

            "We need each other, Farzaneh." My voice gets deeper as the magicked serum takes effect. I feel the aches below my belly and on my chest recede from that bone doctor's surgery we'd threatened in Okami. I'm glad the tattoos cover the scars on my chest. The one blessing those cursed dice have given me.

            "I made potions to fix the fact that you were born in the wrong body, Lucky. You were assigned the wrong gender at birth." Farzaneh removes the needle when the last drop has pushed into my bloodstream. "But here I am, nineteen years old and still cursed. What have you done to help?"

            "Farzaneh..." I pull her red-cloaked body to me, my shirt loose from her pushing back my sleeves to administer the potion. On my bare skin's a map revealing a different tattoo, one for every person I killed. The fish scale coat I'd taken from the drowned captain's body lies slung over a chair by the fire, where a cauldron of another foul witch's brew is bubbling.

I hate looking at the running tally of tattoos on my body. It reminds me of how many I've murdered. Reminds me I'm a human with a death goddess. The dice don't just kill, you see. No. It adds a new mark for every soul we've killed together.

My hakama, the color blue, blends into the folds of the red cloak around her, the effect like fire and ice. I bat my lashes, flex my muscles, all wiry from climbing the rigging when I get bored. "I'm just a boy."

            The look on her face is cruel. It reminds me why those chains are on her wrists.

            Cursed.

            Her green eyes flare up and begin glowing. A sign that the second half within her is growing stronger. The cursed half.

            The monster hiding inside the clever witch girl.

            "I made the potions for you, Lucky. I helped create your legend. Gods know that the back-alley bone doctor you visited nearly killed you with that sketchy surgery." She jabs her bony finger into my chest, the ghost of an ache returning. "You owe everything to me, mortal."

            "Farzaneh, please come back to me."

My dark curls are pulled away from my face and into a short bun with a braided ribbon. I wish my hair was down. The dark storm cloud passing over her face makes me want to hide somehow. "You think you'll seduce me away so easily, Lucky, with your pretty face? You think you'll have me forget about Gila? I'm not interested in fools. I'd eat their bones and drink their blood..."

I hold her firmly back from me as she snaps and foams at the mouth. "Farzaneh!" I scream into her face, willing her glowing eyes to recede. "Don't make me roll the dice."

Just like that, the glow fades.

Like the tide, her glass-green eyes come back. Slightly murky.

"We're both cursed, Lucky. You with dice and the wrong body. Me with a body that's harboring a monster inside it." Farzaneh slumps against me. "I killed Gila, Lucky. The thing inside my body took over. I killed Gila..."

Gila, Farzaneh's first love. Gila, the girl with eyes like rose quartz. Gila, the one who taught the cursed witch that she loved both men and women. Gila, the first casualty of Farzaneh's monster.

Gila, the reason Farzaneh's own coven clapped her in chains and dragged her across the desert to cast into the sea.

Gila, like my dice's tattoos, the reason why Farzaneh hates herself.

"Farzaneh, that's all over now. My goddess called on me."

She sniffs, looking up still with the shadows in her eyes, the shadow of her murders and guilt. "Ode? The death goddess doesn't call in favors lightly."

"Yes, don't you see?" I smile at her, willing the shadows and pain of memory to leave her forever. "I help her, then she uses all the powers that be to fix your curse. And help me recover faster. It's perfect!"

A thought occurs to Farzaneh then. She glowers at me, forehead crinkling. Quietly now, resigned. "You weren't asking me to be your first mate, were you, Lucky?"

I hold my hand out to her with a widening grin. "Welcome aboard the ship Kona, Fari."

***
Hey there, Pirates,

Looks like we have an addition to our crew.

So, what does everyone think of Farzaneh?

Best

Sophia