The Last of the Sea Elves Read online

  The Last of the Sea Elves

  R. A. Cheatham

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Kamo Rana sat hunched on an overturned barrel, staring into the cunning blue eyes of her youngest sister.

  “Two threes.”

  “Three fours.”

  “No way,” Kamo said, smiling at Kali as she fiddled with the cup of dice in her hand.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Kali asked playfully.

  Kamo lifted her cup to check the dice once more.

  “Yes, I believe I am,” she said. “Let’s see those dice.”

  Kamo lifted her cup from the barrel, and Kali did the same.

  “You called my bluff,” Kali laughed, “that’s one down for me.”

  “Kamo, to the helm!” Captain Sheelo’s voice bellowed across the deck, and Kamo nearly fell off her seat.

  “We’ll have to have a rematch tonight, duty calls.”

  Kamo started for the aft deck, checking the lines thoroughly as she went. Fog hung in the air like a shimmery mist around her ship. She nearly collided with her next youngest sister, Kara, as she took a step forward and peered over the bulwark.

  “I promise the lines are secure,” Kara said. “I learned from the very best.”.

  Kamo grinned at her sister.

  “Sheelo is the best, but thank you. Are you up for a game of Liar’s Dice with Kali and me tonight?” Kamo asked.

  “Enemy ships closing off the port bow! All hands on deck!”

  Kamo looked at the barrelman in the crow’s nest as he shouted again.

  “All hands on deck!”

  She ran to the helm and stood behind her captain.

  “Ready the port side cannons!” he shouted.

  Morro, Kamo’s father, was at the helm.

  “How did they find her?” he whispered to Sheelo.

  Three red ships came into view through the fog off the port bow.

  “Kamo.” Sheelo touched her shoulder. “You will do exactly as I tell you. Promise me.”

  Kamo looked from her captain to the ships closing the distance quickly between them. She nodded.

  The ships moved closer, faster than seemed possible. Crewmen were bustling around Sheelo and readying, but they weren’t soldiers. Sheelo insisted that each of his men learn to fence, but they rarely encountered enemies they couldn’t outrun. The crew grunted as they rolled cannons from the armory. Each man found his sword. Kamo watched as her sisters and mother, Kulpa, scrambled with the rest. Sheelo yelled orders from the helm.

  “We might be able to lose them,” he said. He turned to Kamo. “I need you to climb the rigging. Secure the mainsail, and stay aloft.”

  “But–”

  “Exactly as I tell you, Kamo. Go.”

  She ran as the first cannon hit the ship. She jolted from the impact, swayed on her feet, and kept running. As she reached the mainsail and began to climb, she looked to see Fire elves’ red sails almost parallel to her own. Men with scowling faces aboard the enemy ship began to throw their spears. Kamo ducked and watched as her youngest sister’s body was flung overboard, a spear protruding from her chest.

  Kali! No!

  More spears were thrown, and one by one, they fell. First, her sisters‒ Kara, the sweetest and kindest, Kota, adventurous and brave. Their lives ended with two swift throws. Then her parents’. Her father, Morro, stood in front of Sheelo, shielding his captain with his last act. Her mother, Kulpa, was calling to Kamo and running toward her when a stone clipped the back of her head, and she fell forward.

  “Mama!” She screamed. Her limbs froze in disbelief.

  It’s not real. It can’t be real.

  Kamo climbed down and ran toward her mother, praying she could carry her to the safety of the hull. She reached her mother and lifted her head and shoulders from the ship’s deck. Kulpa was severely injured. Blood ran down her cheek, and her eyes glazed over as she whispered.

  “Kamo,” she gasped weakly, “you mustn't let them find…”

  “Sh, mama. You’ll be alright,” Kamo cried. “You’ll be just fine, I promise. Let's get you to the hull. Please, can you stand? Please?”

  She pled in vain. The light left her mother’s eyes.

  The next moments blurred as the chaos melted and molded around Kamo’s tears. She clung to her mother’s lifeless body as the cannons fired. She inhaled the dense smoke in the air and coughed. Her crewmates shouted and scrambled around her. She tried to stand, tried to let go. The captain’s arms closed around her, pulling her from her mother as an enemy cannon blasted the main deck in front of them. Its thunderous roar awakened Kamo to the danger she still faced. The threat that could take her life as it had the lives of her whole family.

  “Kamo.” Her captain’s voice sounded distant and steely. “Kamo, look at me.”

  She turned to face him. Captain Sheelo had taught her to sail. He had taken her under his wing. In many ways, he was more of a father than Morro had ever been. He put a firm hand on Kamo’s shoulders.

  “Secure the mainsail. Stay aloft.”

  Her vision still blurred with tears. She hurried to the main deck and climbed the rigging ladder of the mainmast. Her steps were sure, and she had free climbed the rigging so many times before. At the top, she pulled the rigging hard and waited for the familiar swinging sensation as the ship came about.

  “Ready the starboard cannons!” her captain yelled from the bridge deck below.

  She clung to the rigging as a well-aimed cannon smashed through the foremast. When she turned to see, a massive jolt shook her as a red enemy ship collided with her own. The last thing she saw was Sheelo’s impaled body, his eyes wide in fear and anger. Her fingers grasped for the rigging that seemed to melt away under her fingers as she flew off the ladder into the sea below.

  ◆◆◆

  She woke on the shore of a lone island, unable to remember how she made it safely to land. She scrambled to her feet to see what remained of her ship in the distance, burning as pieces of ember against a twilit sky. Tears and wind burned her cheeks, and her legs threatened to collapse beneath her.

  No Sea elf would betray us to the Fire. How did they know where to find us?

  She stared until the last of the light faded from the sky, and stars replaced the sun. The gentle breeze of the evening quickly turned to strong gusts, but still, Kamo stood, tears rolling down her sun-tanned cheeks.

  How? How did they know where we would be? We were supposed to be safe.

  It was a route the Sea elves had used thousands of times for safe passage through Fire elf territory. They had found most of the Seas’ routes and destroyed anyone they encountered. But they had not discovered this route before. Few Sea elves remained, and they were fleeing together to the last corner of the world, where the Fire elves couldn’t reach—Oshana. But this
captain, this red Fire devil, and his men had seen their ship and destroyed it. Kamo shivered as she remembered her last moments before being thrown from the ship.

  She pictured each of her loved ones, in turn, longing to remember them the way she had known them, happy and peaceful. But the image of death haunted each of their memories. Kali. Kara. Kota. Kulpa. Morro. Sheelo. No one would mourn them with her now.

  Though she couldn’t fathom how it all came about, she knew one thing: the Fire elves would regret the day they left Kamo Rana standing alone.

  Chapter Two

  She opened her eyes. Today would be a year since she woke up on an unfamiliar island. A year since the Fire elves attacked her fleet and left one survivor. Her pain had dulled with time, but her sadness and anger stayed with her as a constant ache. Even with a good amount of rest on a comfortable cot, she felt heavy and exhausted. She rolled to her side, and strands of silvery, white hair fell in her face. Quickly, she reached her hand up and tucked the thick locks behind her ear, hoping the tickling sensation they left would not keep her awake.

  “Ugh… Fine,” Kamo groaned, unable to fall asleep again. “I’m up.”

  She sat up in her cot and moved her feet to the floor. Her long legs had been a little cramped in the space, and she gave them a good stretch before walking to the sink on the far side of the room. In the past year, she had traveled from inn to inn, from hostel to hostel, listening for rumors and whispers. She had arrived on this, the human continent Brimhaul, three months after the attack. She managed to catch a merchant ship's attention with smoke signals and had paid her way on their voyage as a sailor and crewman. Though the merchants were kind, able-bodied, and generous, they had no desire to help her in her quest to the Fires’ stronghold, and Kamo couldn’t blame them. Humans were hard-pressed to join a conflict that had little effect on their continent. Besides, her search for the Fire elves so far had turned up very little, but it had brought her here, to the comfortable coastal village of Tartha.

  She splashed some water on her face and began to dress. Nine months without sailing had thinned her well-defined muscles, but she was still slim and fit. She scowled as she spied wisps of white hair tangled around her shoulders. White hair was a dead giveaway, like a shining beacon, an invitation for any would-be Fire assassins or ruthless traders bucking for a rare souvenir of the Sea elves. The blue scales high on her cheeks near her ears were easy to hide with powder, while long, white hair would have to be cut and dyed to hide her race. But Kamo couldn’t bear to cut or cover it. She was proud of her heritage.

  Most of the time, she twisted every lock into a tight bun on the back of her head, both to obscure its color and to keep it out of the way, but today she felt no need to hide. She ran a brush through the long waves and peeked in her mirror to admire the effect. For a moment, she smiled. She could almost see her sisters grinning at her, teasing her about her brown eyes. Most Sea elves had bright, blue eyes that reflected the deepest colors of the ocean. The Rana clan, in particular, had daughters known for the bluest, sapphire eyes. Kamo was different. Her brown eyes had always been a distinction for her, a reminder that she was not the same as her family, and today she yearned to see a deep, blue iris looking back from the mirror. But it was just her and her muddy brown eyes. A pang of longing replaced her smile, and she turned to leave the room.

  She made her way down the crooked staircase to the dining hall. The smell of the shore permeated the morning air, and Kamo drank it in. It was good to be near the ocean; it felt like home. Though it was later in the morning, many sailors still dotted the tables in the hall. As she entered, she watched them turn their heads and look at her shimmering hair. Their eyes searched for her blue scales, and the blood rushed to her cheeks. Perhaps she was reckless today in her elvish appearance.

  “Sleep well, did you?”

  She flicked her head back and forth slightly to search through the pairs of eyes and found the sailor addressing her.

  “Yes, thank you, Gobi.” She moved to his table and sat down across from him. Gobi was a young sailor, sixteen or seventeen if she had to guess, with sparkling green eyes and curly black hair. Though Kamo was only a couple of years older, he had always regarded her with respect and admiration. Kamo mused that he was awestruck in meeting a Sea elf.

  “It’s not like sleeping on a ship, but it’s a place to stay.” He spoke in Oshia, the Sea elf language, “It’s safe, from what I can tell.” Gobi learned the language from his grandfather, and Kamo loved speaking to him in her native tongue. He had also lost friends and family on the ocean. He spent time asking her about the people she had lost. He asked about their joys and her favorite memories of them. It wasn’t long before Kamo felt that Gobi knew her family because of all the stories she had told about each of them. She liked to believe that Gobi and Kali would have made a couple to be reckoned with if they had ever met. They had the same sweet yet feisty disposition.

  Their friendship blossomed, and after learning about her family, they had begun to discuss sailing, a topic about which they could both spend hours talking. He asked about the Seas and the best waters to sail, and Kamo was grateful for the respite of good company. They spent a few months searching for clues of the Fires' whereabouts. Gobi had proven both valuable and determined to help in the venture.

  “Any word from Rolin?” Kamo asked, trying to hide the desperation in her voice.

  To her surprise, Gobi nodded. “He’s arriving today. He said he thinks he’s found something. He’ll meet us here later,” he said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  Kamo’s pointed ears perked in anticipation, and she listened hard for the man who would bring news of the Fires, though she knew he could still be hours away. Her shoulders tensed as she sat at the table. Now that Gobi had delivered his news, he began to speculate the fate of the Fire elves.

  “They just disappeared? No one just disappears. Even the Earth elves occasionally surface to give us a glimpse,” Gobi said. His human nature made him naturally curious about the elves and his youth even more so. He tousled his curly black hair and shook his head. “Where have they got to?”

  Kamo had asked herself these questions for the past year. She assumed that after their triumph of genocide, the Fires would voyage to the human continent to purge their race as well. Yet here she was in Brimhaul, its landscapes and culture untouched by the Fire elves' destructive flames and ashes.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I thought their thirst would drive them here. They have a history filled with slaughter and violence, and I thought they would want to share those grand traditions with a newer culture.” The Fires and Seas had warred for years before the Sea elves fled. Without her people as an enemy, she thought the Fires would find a new target in a younger race. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they returned to Ferena to peacefully live out their days.” She smirked. Fire elves were anything but peaceful.

  Gobi forced a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Do you think Rolin will take us to them?”

  Kamo noticed a tremor in his voice as he spoke. She tried to reassure him.

  “From everything you’ve told me, I don’t think Rolin would be the one to march to a Fire elf city and demand entrance. He sounds too rational, too disciplined,” she said. Gobi relaxed in his chair. “Besides, he said he found ‘something,’ not the hidden nation itself.”

  At the mention of the hidden Fire nation, Gobi’s imagination ran wild. He ranted about the myths surrounding its existence and location while Kamo listened and laughed. Her people had so many legends surrounding them. She tried her best to satisfy his need for knowledge and truth, correcting her people’s history when the legend had gotten the better of the fact.

  She was grateful to Gobi for his curiosity, and on the subject of Fire elf lore, she had a good deal of interest herself. While the Sea and Fire elves had a common ancestry, their cultures had developed radical differences, and she knew very little of them before the violence and bloodlust.

  The day melt
ed away as Kamo relaxed into her seat, only half-listening to Gobi’s theories. The initial excitement of information had worn off, and she was restless for more. Anticipation had turned to exhaustion by the time the stranger approached. Gobi had given a brief description of the way Rolin looked, but Kamo gasped a breath of pleasant surprise as a man fitting his description walked toward them.

  He was tall for a human, taller than Kamo even, at least by a few inches. Even from afar, she could see a strong jawline and dark brown hair that fell on his forehead close to his eyebrows. His face was pleasant and calm. His broad shoulders almost swayed as he walked. His stride was long and easy, and he walked with purpose. When he approached the table, Kamo and Gobi stood to meet him. Rolin smiled at Gobi with dazzling white teeth.

  “Gobi, it’s good to see you, friend!” he said. He spoke with a smooth, warm tone. The two men embraced, and Gobi beamed, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You too. It’s been too long,” Gobi replied, still smiling. He gestured to Kamo. “This is my friend, Kamo Rana,” he said. The pride in his voice made Kamo’s cheeks turn red, and her hand warmed as Rolin took it in his. He looked at her, and she peered into a surprising set of beautiful brown eyes. They weren’t anything like her own. Hers were muddy and dull. His eyes were glistening bronze statues and dripping caramel. He smiled again, and his eyes lit up. He stared at her face taking in every detail. He focused on her white hair, then her blue scales, and paused a little as he met her eyes. She quickly let go of his hand and nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. He raised one eyebrow and took on a teasing expression.

  “A Sea elf with brown eyes? I thought I’d seen it all,” he laughed. Kamo couldn’t help but blush as they sat down at the table together. “You certainly are unique,” he said. He caught her eye again, and a soft, sad smile approached his lips. “I’m sorry. Gobi wrote to me and told me your story. I know what it’s like to be the last of your kind, and,” he reached over the table to rest his hand on hers again, “I’m truly sorry.”