Spirit Fire

Chapter One

Kaelyn

The waves rolled beneath the boat, throwing up the smell of salt and brine in her face. After working on this whaling boat for nearly three years, she thought she would have been used to the smell. It still somehow made her nauseous. Perhaps it was knowing that some innocent creature would die today from the cruel hands of the men working beside her.

Kaelyn gripped the wooded oar tighter. This was the worst part of her day.

"Girl, keep rowing. We don't have all day." Her boss's right-hand man and mate growled at her.

She was lucky to have even gotten this job. Without it, she and her little brother would have died from starvation, illness, or cold a long time ago. It was because of her little brother that she kept working on this whaling ship. That she kept killing innocent creatures. It was all for him. The only person she had left after their mother died. The only person in all of Erdas that she cared about and loved with all of her heart.

Her oar dipped in and out of the murky, foggy water in sync with the other rowers. Their boat continued in silence, the only sound that could be heard was the rowing from their boat and the other four out; slowly disappearing in both sight and sound.

Her boss was the only whaler in all of Frost's Cape and controlled all whaling in the village and in his section of the ocean. There were multiple whaling operations along the northern coast of Eura; each had its own section of the ocean to whale in. Those who enter another whaling operation's territory either had to pay in coin or give up anything they caught. The rules between each whaling operation were complicated and often times the leaders of the whaling operations got into it, usually over absurd things.

The boat shifted underneath her, and she immediately grasped the side of the boat to steady herself. She would never be able to adjust to a boat even after almost three years of whaling.

"Closer, men. We've found us one." Her boss's right-hand man and mate in charge of their boat said.

Kaelyn continued rowing with the rest of the rowers as her boss's right-hand man steered after the whale. She could see the whale ahead of them. It bobbed up and down in the air, a spray of air and water billowing up into the sky.

As they drew nearer, Kaelyn felt the sorrow building up inside of her. Every time she had to watch a whale be killed and help skin it, she went home and cried for hours. She hated killing these majestic beasts. It wasn't fair to them to be mercilessly hunted by humans. She understood animals hunting each other. But humans could choose to be better. It was part of the reason why she stopped eating meat. Why kill innocent animals when they are various other options to eat, such as fruits and vegetables. They were just as sustaining as long as you knew which ones to eat.

This caused many people to believe she was a witch or there was something wrong with her. She ignored them. Let people think what they want. Even if she were to conform to the norm like everyone else, she knew it would never be enough. Everything she did was never enough. Whether it was working her hands raw every day whaling or making sure there was always enough for her little brother to eat. Life was hard and she accepted that dark truth. But she didn't care. As long as she could provide for her little brother, that was all that mattered. Nothing else did. Not those who call her a witch or the growing thinness in her own body. Her brother was all that mattered and nothing else.

She took a deep breath and shoved the sorrow down, steeling herself for what was to come next. It was the only way she knew how to get through the sorrow and misery arising inside of her.

Her hands ached from the rough wood and the cold. She ignored it like everything else. She needed money for her brother. She needed this. She would pray to Tellum tonight and ask for his forgiveness. She didn't know why but she had always felt the urge to beg for Tellum's forgiveness every time she helped kill a whale. She wasn't sure if it made her feel less guilty or what. It just felt right.