A Pirate's Tale [COMPLETED]

Chapter 29 - "We can't outrun it."

"Isla."

Isla ignored the summons for her attention. She was bent over her desk, staring down at the palace layout. For the past week, the crew and she had been discussing the most secure plan for entering and exiting the palace without it costing their freedom.

The need for a distraction of some sort had arisen quickly. But that threw in new complications for they needed a distraction that was effective but without causing damage to the palace or to its occupants.

Hundreds of diversions had been talked over but each one had been discarded. There had been one that had been suggested and even though it covered all they needed in a distraction Isla found she couldn't accept it and had shoved it away with the rest.

Night fell as food and sleep called to the men. They had departed from Isla's cabin, leaving her to contemplate the pages before her, covered with Raif's steady pen strokes and with no reasonable way forward.

Isla grew more frustrated as she glared at the layout. The one distraction that was even conceivable held too many unknowns. Out of nowhere, Raif's hand appeared on top of the paper, obscuring the third level she was studying.

"Isla," he said again.

Letting out an annoyed breath, Isla pressed her fingers into her eyes, trying to brush off her fatigue over her lack of direction.

"Look at me," Raif said, his voice soft and coaxing.

Dropping her hand, she faced him. He was leaning in, head cocked in concern.

"We do not have the answers for tonight," he said. "Let it rest."

Isla scowled. "How can I when with each day we draw closer to Loria?"

"We still have time. But you will not find the solution if you overtax yourself. Think of something else, we will find a way."

As Isla rubbed her forehead, she closed her eyes. Even without seeing the papers, she had them memorized and they rose into the front of her mind, taunting her.

"Talk to me," Raif said as if knowing where her thoughts were taking her.

"About what?" She rested her head in her hands, fighting a battle with weariness and despair.

"Tell me about the Currents. The crew has talked of them but it appears they know little about them."

For a breath, Isla didn't move, locked in a memory from her childhood. She opened her eyes and held her hand before her, running her finger along the lines on her palm, able to feel the callused touch of her father's fingertip as he had told her of their family's secret. Raif's shadow on the desk shifted as he eased back in his chair, waiting.

Lamplight cast crisscrossing patterns on the floor and infused the air with the scent of burning oil. The glow of the lanterns filled the cabin but was unable to penetrate the darkness beyond the window. The sea beat against the ship, its constant murmur an undertone to every conversation that had ever taken place in the cabin.

"The Currents are as they sound, currents under the ocean's surface," Isla said, speaking to her hand. "They are pathways that can carry a ship from one end of the kingdom to the next in a breath. Most every sailor knows of their existence. Some have even chanced upon them, but my father...my family, we know where each one lies." 

She lifted her head and found Raif watching her, intrigued and captured by her. She took his wrist, tugging him towards her. He came easily, closing the distance in an instant. She turned over his wrist so his palm faced upward.

"It is a secret the Eldin have passed down from generation to generation. A secret that is taught like this." She traced her finger over the lines of Raif's skin. "Though most of the ocean feels like a course surface, they are deeper valleys and in those valleys live the Currents. Unseen but powerful."