The Shadow Captain: The Shadow Captain, #3

By Aurelia Springs

Eisa is back on a journey to find her captured lover and captain, Laika, and to preserve her legend. In order to find her though, Eisa must search through her own heart and identity, and through a cloudy history of truths and tales to find the woman, as well as, The Shadow Captain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aurelia Springs
• Release date: Feb 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507075951

Book preview

The harsh bite of the salty wind licked at the little skin Eisa had exposed to the air as she stood poised and tall on the bow of her ship. She focused on every sensation, the sting of the wind, the smell of the salt in the water so strong that she could taste it. She counted every drop of the ocean spray that landed on her face, but none of it could make her feel real, feel complete. She longed for Laika like a missing limb. Eisa had lost count of the hours that had turned into days, and even months if not more since she had last seen those eyes. They were only ones in the world that saw her the way they saw everything else.

Eisa could only hope for a small fraction of that same vision as she looked out to sea for anything at all that may guide her. She looked for anything that would help Eisa to find her.

...

The cavern had been as black as the color had ever been. They were leagues under water and the little light that could have filtered down to the opening of their small cavern had been entirely blocked by the single large stone that Laika had moved to the only entrance. Seconds or hours that they had been down their Eisa could never know. All of existence had happened at once and not at all in that blackest void where Eisa's every other sense was had been dulled overwhelmed by the pressure of the depths. She couldn't even feel whether her eyes were open or closed. The only thing in all existence was the sound of Laika's voice, far off and muted as it struggled to reach her through the sea water full of life smaller than Eisa could ever fathom. She was trying to guide her in the abyss. Laika was trying to lead her to an ability trapped so deeply within her Eisa couldn't even be sure it existed. But she was trying. She grabbed onto the weak strains of Laika's voice as if they were a hand that could drag her from the darkness, and followed and pulled. She opened her eyes and searched through the blackness, finding only more of nothing except the absolute certainty that there wasn't. She knew that Laika was in there, guiding her, and Eisa would find her. She stared out into the blackness searching for the smallest of subtle differences, looking for any distinctions between the different depths of pitch black. When the wall before her proved fruitless Eisa kicked. She spun in the emptiness and searched again for anything by sight, and slowly, creeping as eternity she felt as much as saw it, the infinitesimal variations in shape and form, that slightest razor sharp difference between the curve of a cheekbone and the rock next to it. She saw the sparkle of eyes; that gleam of all the stars in the sky that not even the black of nothingness could obscure.

Eisa moved through the space, suddenly as illuminated to her in the reflection of those eyes as the brightest and clearest day on a calm sea, and reaching out with absolute certainty and aim at what she knew would be there, grabbed Laika by the waist and pulled her from the wall that she had watched from.

It was a vision like Eisa could never have imagined as she took in every feature of her lover's face with this new sight.

Eisa could read the shadows.

...

It had proven useful then when she had resurrected what she could of the previous shadow ship from its fiery wreckage and used it to add to and strengthen the new ship that she had stolen and modified. It passed well enough as the Shadow Captain's ship the same way that Eisa had spent so long now passing as the Shadow Captain herself.

She knew enough of the stories, and had learned enough of Laika's special skills to convince the new crew she had gathered that she was the captain. She led them in raids for supplies the same way the legends that passed around the pirate drinking holes said that she would. A few examples made and no one questioned her.

Every command that Eisa gave felt foreign in her mouth. She felt the lie with every syllable, but worse she felt the aching pain of the real captain's absence. At night she would lay in the cabin, empty of most of the marvelous treasures that had once adorned the walls of the real captain's cabin. There were only a few things Eisa had found in the ships remains that had managed to escape the eyes of mermaids. She had smiled when she recognized the polished wood of the fertility totem that Laika had once used on her. It rested in a trunk now, the memories she associated with it hidden far away from the prying eyes of people who didn't need to see it, and from Eisa. It was just another thing to bring back memories that made Eisa feel hollow inside. She would focus on the sway of the sea rocking the ship and wonder what Laika would say if she could only see her now. She would raise her eye brow with that glimmer in her eye, and then laugh her filthy laugh as soon as they were alone at the silly way that Eisa surely did everything – not as sure and proud and strong as Laika, the real Shadow Captain would.

But she was gone, taken from Eisa by some bastards who had put half the world it felt like into apprehending