Mira had never been on a ship before. It was much bigger than she thought it would be and louder: creaking and heaving and swelling and straining as if at any moment the boards would be plucked apart by the sea and everyone would drown. She’d only seen a single ship from a distance, and even then, only once. The ship she found herself on now was longer and flatter, with many more oars and one large square sail instead of three smaller ones. Indeed, the ship was so long that the thick fog that skirted along the water’s surface sometimes hid the ship’s nose from those standing at the tail.

There were more men than oars, so those not rowing lounged about or slept. And no matter where Mira stood or sat, she always seemed to be in someone’s way. It was impossible to avoid being bumped into, and those who needed to pass would often growl at her or make frightening faces with their teeth bared, laughing at how quickly she scurried. Sometimes her captor would rebuke them, in a jesting way, for scaring her, but not always.

There was one particularly menacing man. He had only one arm, and it seemed like he had parted with his missing limb quite recently, as the linen tied just below his shoulder was stained a deep burgundy colour. He was drunk within half of an hour of boarding and always pacing, muttering to himself. At one point, Mira didn’t get out of his way fast enough (she was too busy being horrified at the sight of another Northman who had taken his boots off, revealing the bottoms of his hairy feet to be covered in the bluish-green patterns). When she didn’t move out of his way, the one-armed man struck her, his singular, giant hand knocking into the side of her face. The force of the cuff sent her sprawling, so not only was her right cheek burning, but the left side was throbbing as it had slammed into the rails. She would have cried if she hadn’t been so shocked by the pain and the slap that came from nowhere. Mira had been caused physical pain often in her childhood, but always in a roundabout way; never had someone struck her so blatantly before.

Her spear-toothed captor shouted at the one-armed man, and he shouted back, and then, the spear-toothed man said something that made everyone watching laugh. Her captor came to Mira and turned her head to look at her cheek. He shrugged and gargled some words that felt like he was meaning: You’re fine. Don’t look so sour.

There was a small closed room at the head of the ship that only one man ever went in and a drummer who played a slow, heavy beat that those rowing moved in time with. Mira’s captor rowed just the same as the others (except for the one-armed man), and she soon found that crouching in between the rowing benches near where he sat was the most out of the way she could be. She was frightened of him, to be sure, but maybe less frightened than of the others. They sang songs as they rowed in deep, hearty voices, and despite having nearly nothing to eat on the road, they didn’t seem tired or weak. This made them all the more terrifying.

In addition to Mira, the raiders brought two other Islish women on board. The younger girl—likely too young to be wed—jumped into the sea when she had the chance and began swimming back towards the Isle through a wall of wispy blue mist. The Northmen thought this funny and shouted at her until she was out of sight. Mira’s captor kept a closer watch over her after that, often with a curious smirk and lifted brows. I am ready for it—if you dare. That is what Mira felt his eyes were saying to her.

She did not dare.

The other woman was older with sharp black brows and a dress that maybe had once been blue but had faded grey. The woman was beautiful, to be sure, but bleeding and shivering and weak and so not able to move well. She asked why Mira did not jump as the other young girl had.

“I can’t swim.”

“Still, would it not be better?”

This was a question Mira couldn’t answer without feeling pathetic, so she avoided the woman’s gaze as best she could.

At first, being captive at sea was much the same as being captive on land, but the further from the shore they got, the rougher the waters became, and the more Mira’s stomach churned. Her captor gave her mint, but still, she vomited overboard many times. He laughed at her, and Mira hated him even more than she did before. Sleeping was her only respite, though she worried about being unconscious around the rabid beasts on the ship and so could not usually allow herself more than the bare necessity, often jolting awake in terror, suddenly remembering where she was. She was not always afraid of violence or tragedy—though these were very real possibilities—she was sometimes worried about embarrassment. The Northmen often played tricks on each other, painting on the faces of those who fell asleep first or passed out from the drink.

***

When land was far out of sight, a great storm brewed. Mira thought for certain it would sink the ship, but the Northmen laughed and cheered at the crashing of the waves and the thunder that lit up the fog. Indeed, the raiders responded with such vigour it seemed the storm offered more rejuvenation to them than a full evening’s rest. With wild eyes, they hooted and roared like animals, and as briny waves slammed on board, the blood on their hands and faces washed away, revealing pale, broad features with eyebrows so fair Mira almost couldn’t make them out.

One moment the nose of the ship was up in the air, the next moment the tail.

Mira slipped around on the deck, unable to keep steady, trying to crawl to something to sturdy hold on to. The few lucky horses that were not lost to exhaustion or given the axe flailed about in fear, and Mira worried one would trample her.

The Northmen laughed at her jittery panic, (though there was one who pulled her out of the way when a hoof was about to strike her in the stomach). She turned to look upon the face of the man who saved her so as to thank him, but he’d moved on to another task and—because all the Northmen looked the same to her—she was not sure which one was him.

Mira had to vomit again, and she knew she wouldn’t make it to the edge of the ship in time. She puked on the deck, and laughter roared. She hated how much the Northmen laughed, not only that but how they laughed: violently—their whole body overcome by the outburst.

“Soten!” The spear-toothed man laughed at her too, though she could tell by how he moved his hands that he was calling her to him. She tried to make her way in his direction, but the deck was slippery and constantly moving, matching each eruption of salty water with a kick. Another wall of sea slammed upon the deck, and the weight of it forced her to her knees, the back of her neck stinging where the water slapped against her skin.

An awareness struck Mira, bright and fast like the lightning off in the distance. There were no knights aboard the ship. No one was going to aid her. She would be swept away and swallowed by the sea like in her dream. Or she would keep herself from washing away. There were no other possibilities.

She clenched her teeth and grabbed onto the arm of a fearsome-looking man who was rowing and pulled herself in the direction she wanted to go. There were three men in the row, and she used each of them to pull herself closer to her captor. They didn’t stop her, but it frightened her all the same to touch so many strange and evil men.

When she got to him, he laughed and spoke. The storm was so loud she couldn’t hear his voice, but even if she could, she would know none of his words. It annoyed her that he kept speaking to her as if she would magically grasp his language and answer. The Northman let go of the oar and motioned again.

He was offering for her to sit in his lap, so he could keep her steady as he rowed. It was not ladylike, but she accepted, trading in the risk of being sucked out to sea for a sickly shame that nibbled at the pit of her stomach and confused her. She had never been told that sitting in a man’s lap was something that should not be done; she was not breaking any rule that she knew of, but she had never seen anyone else do this and so felt embarrassed all the same.

Even though Mira felt what she was doing was wrong, she did not change it for fear of being gobbled up by the sea. She hadn’t before thought of herself as someone with flexible morals. But she was. And it hurt more than she could ever explain to learn this about herself.After spending an unknown period of time pressed into her spear-toothed captor as the sea battered the ship, the off-duty men relieved those rowing. By then, the storm had softened just enough that Mira could open her eyes and make out what was happening within a few paces of herself. Her captor kept a firm grasp on her arm as he pulled her off of the benches towards the open deck.

The wood was slippery and uneven, and as the nose of the ship tilted straight up—reaching for the soot-coloured sky—Mira lost her footing. She cried out, afraid that her captor would lose hold of her and she would continue to slide—right off the ship and into the endless black depths.

He did lose hold of her, and as she slid, she screamed.

There was an all-encompassing whiteness that burned Mira’s eyes and a crash so loud it felt like she’d been hit in the head from both sides at the same time. Her chin slammed into the deck, and her mind rattled within her skull, and she felt herself rolling. She couldn’t see or hear anything but a shrill ringing sound for many moments as her arms flailed and attempted to find something to grab on to.

Mira’s eyes came back to her first. She could see the brownish-grey of the deck, and as she pushed her hands against it to move to her knees, she began to understand what had happened. Lightning had struck and there were two men frantically stamping out a single warm light amidst the black and grey and blue—a flame.

Something had caught fire.

She had to close and open her eyes many times to push away her dizziness and get the full picture. It was her captor; his tunic was ablaze, and he was unconscious.

Is he dead?

Everyone not rowing or putting out the fire was looking at her—a sea of furrowed brows and pale, wide eyes. They murmured to one another.

The first thing Mira heard when her ears recovered from the blast was the stolen woman’s poison-laced tongue.

“Witch!”

Mira shook her head as panic squeezed her lungs. “No,” she said. “I didn’t do it.”

The stolen woman cursed her out many times over, and Mira cried. “I did nothing; I swear it!”

As Mira stood, the men shuffled away from her, the way Almun the stable master moved around an untamed horse—not so much afraid, but slow and calm so as to avoid spooking the creature. A jolly-looking man with thick lips and round, rosy cheeks burst into laughter. He choked on some Northern words, and soon, many were laughing along with him. The tension in the air dissolved like stars fading in early morning, and the men began to carry on with their tasks. Her maybe-dead, maybe-alive captor was moved into the little room at the head of the ship, and Mira was left to fend for herself during the remainder of the storm, clinging tightly to the rails of the ship and shivering.