The First Six (Fourth Wing Prequel)

The First

Infantry became grave filler. Cavalry become nobles. Buccaneers became gods. It took a reckless, twisted kind of person to conquer and skin the sea beasts. Cardia had dreamed of wielding an iron cutlass ever since her fifth birthday when she watched one of the monsters devour an entire ship.
Now she stood in the deadliest place known to humans: the beach. No one was allowed within twenty meters of a beach, much less the ocean. Today, eighty teenagers stood primed in the sand, fizzling with blood lust or adrenaline thirst or both.
Cardia stood in the middle of the group, spinning her jagged fishing knives as she waited.
"If you stab me," Ophelia said, dramatically stepping away from Cardia's reach. "I will take your knives."
Cardia tossed her knife in the air and caught it by the hilt. "Then I'd have to kill you."
"With what?" Ophelia snatched the knife and dangled it in front of her friend. "Strangle me with your braids?"
A few feet behind Ophelia, an attractive boy with lilac hair was smiling at Cardia. He was tall and frail, his one bronze dagger still strapped to his belt. He wouldn't last a minute in the sea. Seeing he had caught her eye, the boy strolled toward the girls.
"Good morning," he said. "Fine day for a swim."
"You ever been in the ocean?" Cardia asked.
His eyebrows shot up. "Wouldn't be standing here if I had."
Cardia leaned into him, letting her hair brush his shoulder. "I don't intend to leave you standing, sailor."
The sun hammered down on them, its shadows showing that it was nearly noon. Cardia pulled herself into her diving suit, her bare skin sliding against the green leather and chain-link shark metal. Blood ringed the neck opening, indicating the previous owner had failed to close the hatch properly and had paid for their stupidity with their life.
A buccaneer captain stood in between the crowd and the sea. She was tall and proud, and despite being only maybe twenty or so, she already wore a black captain's coat with gleaming iron buttons. She lofted a peach conch shell to her lips and gave it three short blows.
Uneasy silence smothered the crowd. Ophelia took Cardia's hand.
"Recruits!" the captain yelled.
The eighty students snapped to attention, drawing their fists against their throats in the navy salute.
"I'm Captain Hernandez. I don't give a shit who you are."
Cardia and Ophelia shared a glance.
"You have one hour," Hernandez continued, "to find a mermaid. Skin it, bring its hide back, and that's your ticket into the College of Buccaneers." Her eyes raked over the recruits, obviously unimpressed with this year's crop. "You can hunt in groups of twos or threes." Her mouth spread into an amused grin. "And of course, foul play is fair play."
Ophelia squeezed Cardia's hand, and she squeezed it back. Cardia's foot was bouncing, unable to disguise her anticipation.
The conch shell bellowed through the air.
Cardia held fast to Ophelia's hand as they sprinted toward the surf. Cardia gave Ophelia's nose a quick kiss before they yanked their trapmasks over their faces.
The lilac-haired boy still lingered far from the tide, patting his sides as he realized his weapon was gone.
Cardia tucked the bronze dagger in her boot and launched herself into the water. She tore through the water, keeping apace with Ophelia. Cardia had trained in simulation pools, but they were nothing compared to the violent waves of the true ocean. The water rushed at her, slamming against her body and challenging her every stroke.
The trapmask covered her entire face in mermaid leather and waterglass, but Cardia knew they had matching smirks. Recycled oxygen from the trapmask tasted stale and hot. Some pirates grew to love it, others carried reserve air bottles for emergencies.
Ophelia flicked her foot twice, signalling she had found prey. The girls powered toward the ocean floor, dodging sharp cow-sized urchins and schools of reflective fish. Forests of coral--bruise-colored violet, royal turquoise, melted butter yellow--burst from the sandy floor in sprawling fists.
A jagged ridge arched up from the ocean floor like a great spine. Just beyond the spinal discs, glimpses of radiant platinum flashed from behind a massive wall of coral.
A mermaid.
They had been the stuff of Cardia's nightmares for as long as she could remember. The creatures that owned the sea and devoured any human who dared to enter their domain.
The shiny creature wove through the reef, long hair streaming behind it. The mermaid's glowing golden eyes took up half of its face and its unhinged snapping jaw taking up the other half. Otherwise their faces were smooth, free of noses or distinctive chins. Its pointed ears flanked its head like twin knives. The top half looked almost human but from the waist down, its two scaled legs fused into a conjoined pair of armored trunks punctuated by a translucent forked fin.
Cardia signaled: "Sink it."
The girls barreled toward the oblivious monster. The mermaid was snuffling around a clump of coral, digging for oysters or fish dumb enough to remain in one place for long.
The mermaid smelled the approaching girls, its bulbous, incandescent eyes narrowing.
Ophelia signed to Cardia to use plan three. Cardia raced to cut off the creature's escape path as Ophelia shot straight toward its snapping jaws. Ophelia wielded an iron crescent blade in both hands, lacerating the mermaid's arm before it even registered the glint of the knives. Cerulean blood blossomed from the cut like slow puffs of smoke. She kept slicing at its flesh, circling the creature, stabbing and severing.
The mermaid had time to lift its hacked and dismembered arms before Cardia leapt into the fray, serrated fish knives drawn.
Cardia pivoted from her hips and then, pushing off her toes, she spun through the current like a top, blades spiraling. She sliced the tail fin first, rendering the beast immobile. Ophelia jammed the hilt of her knife across the creature's mouth and used it to drive her like a bridle. With the murderous teeth out of commission, Cardia was free to pull a cloud stake from her belt. She thrust the tip of the stake directly into the creature's chest. She had to forcefully push it deeper, deeper until ribs splintered and her hands were slick inside the creature's bloody sternum.
Ophelia released the creature from her embrace, giving its mouth a quick slice before kicking it square in the face. Its terrified eyes gleamed as the dying creature sank toward the floor. The creature looked extremely human in that moment, terrified and vulnerable. It looks like a girl, Cardia thought. Maybe my age.
Ophelia pulled her filet knives from her boot holsters and dove toward the creature. Ophelia laid the edge of the knife flush with the creature's waist, ready to begin skinning it. Cardia stayed Ophelia's hand, pointing to the creature's still moving chest. Cardia swiped her knife across the creature's throat and waited for it to stop moving.
Ophelia set to work praying the scaled tail away from the human torso. Cardia broke the monster's jaw so she could easily yank out as many teeth as she could. They would fetch a handsome price off of some rich toff who loved to wear predator jewelry.
Ophelia loosed the tube of scaled flesh and the hollow sleeve floundered in the water. Two fully formed human legs with feet and toes now made up the bottom half of the creature. Human. The creature looked entirely human.
Cardia felt bile rising in her throat. Was she frightened when she saw us? Did she have a family? Will they be heartbroken tonight when they realize she is never coming back?
Two figures emerged from the shadowed side of the coral ridge, trapmasks dark against the rainbow coral. The recruits appeared to be two men, one carrying a heavy tube and the other struggling to swim with his trident.
A trident, how cliche could you get?
Cardia signed to the men: "Get lost. We already hunted this spot."
But the men did not slow down. In fact, they swam faster, torpedoing straight for the girls. Something shiny and delicate exploded from the heavy tube. Before either of the girls could move, a bronze net swallowed them, its boulder weights sinking toward the ocean floor. Each individual link was composed of a myriad of dolphin teeth fused together. The snare was razor sharp. Any small movement caused the net to compress further in on itself, digging into their skin.
The man who had shot the ensnaring round snapped up the mermaid hide and broke toward the surface.
The remaining man poked his trident tips under Ophelia's chin and forced her to look up at him.
"Tell me how angry you are over dinner later, love," he signed. With that, he casually swam toward the surface, taking his sweet time.
Ophelia's bleached eyebrows formed angry roofs on her face. Cardia knew that look like the inside of her own eyelids. Ophelia would kill those men before nightfall.
Cardia was pissed off too, of course, but Ophelia eyes said she was planning a special, slow death for their captors.
Within minutes, the men would be crawling onto the beach, brandishing the mermaid hide and bragging about stealing it from some stupid girls. Captain Hernandez would brand their hands with an iron and put officer coats on their backs.
It took the girls a full ten minutes to saw through the enforced metal snare, the wire and dolphin teeth cutting into their skin. Red blood streamed out of their countless wounds, sure to draw the attention of any nearby mermaid. They smelled like an easy dinner.
Something glimmered in the corner of her eye. She turned, there was the lilac-haired boy, trapped in a net just as they had been. He clawed wildly at the wire mesh.
Cardia's hand shot to the bronze dagger in her boot. The boy's dagger, his only way to get out of the net. Damn it.
"I'm going over there," Cardia signed.
"We don't have time for good bloody deeds," Ophelia ended her sign with a vulgar gesture.
"I took his knife."
"He shouldn't have let a strange girl close enough to pickpocket him."
Cardia cupped her hands and forcefully stroked through the water. She was a hundred meters from him. Ninety.
A platinum tail flashed behind a willow urchin. It was so pretty it was unsettling: shimmering orange and yellow scales, tiny pearls braided in his hair, his throat hugged by strands of starfish.
She was eighty meters from the boy. Seventy.
The supernaturally pretty mermaid pounced out of its alcove, teeth sinking into the lilac-haired boy's shoulder. The boy's mouth was open in a scream, not that anyone could hear it.
Sixty meters. Fifty meters.
Cardia pulled the bronze dagger from her boot. Six inches, double-sided blade, no frills.
The boy was thrashing wildly as the mermaid snapped its mouth open and close, taking large chunks of his flesh from his neck, his torso, his arms.
Forty meters. Thirty.
Ophelia was a few meters behind her, splashing through the water, obviously agitated with this detour.
Twenty meters. Ten.
Cardia pushed off of a whale skeleton, using the momentum to drive the dagger into the mermaid's skull. The dull blade pierced the flesh of its soft temple. The creature's body stiffened, its teeth still locked into the boy's leg. The boy was panicking, kicking and flailing his remaining limbs. Cardia dug her fingers into either side of the mermaid's mouth, hooking her fingers over the inside of the creature's cheeks, and yanked as hard as she could. The dead mermaid at last released the boy, taking his entire right foot and ankle with it.
A deep, cavernous emptiness spread through Cardia's stomach. The dull weight of the bronze knife strained her hand, the hot blood pouring down her arms. The boy's blood, endless and warm and painting the water. Heat and crimson poured out of him. His body was hopelessly tangled in the net. His eyes were pleading, wet.
Cardia held her fist to her throat. Tides take you, Aje accept you, she prayed. She quickly stuck the blade into the back of his neck, then his heart, then his throat. A speedy, compassionate death. His face finally relaxed, grateful. Cardia's hand went limp. She let the dagger sink to the sea floor. Only one of the boy's arms was still in tact. She took his hand in her own and kicked the sunlight. When her head finally broke through the surface, she tore her trapmask off and eagerly gulped down air. Cardia waited, treading water and hugging the boy's mangled corpse. Maybe it was for a minute or perhaps an hour.
Ophelia shattered the mirrored water surface, peeled off her trapmask, and exhaled in ecstasy. She clenched the mermaid hide in one hand and a leather pouch filled with teeth in the other. Seeing the body in Cardia's arms, Ophelia's face melted into concern.
Cardia's breaths came in heavy, strained pants. "I killed him."
Ophelia shoved the teeth pouch in her boot and helped Cardia keep the corpse aloft. "There was nothing we could have done," Ophelia said. "We were way too far away."
"I had his knife," Cardia sobbed. "I stole it. If he'd had it, he could have cut his way out--"
"Of the net. The net those assholes trapped him in. Not you. You didn't take a cheap shot or cheat."
"He could've at least fought the creature. He had to languish there, defenseless as a newborn."
Cardia tasted salt, unsure how much of it was the water and how much of it was her own cowardly tears. Ophelia pressed her forehead against Cardia's. "The sun is shifting," Ophelia said. "It won't matter that we scored a kill if we're not back in time."
Cardia allowed her friend to drag her back to the shore. Ophelia strode out of the sea, water falling off her lusciously plump figure. Cardia tumbled onto the beach, still hugging the boy's body, breading both of them in sand. She spat the dry granules out of her mouth. Her pulse hammered in her ears. The conch shell blew. Some people cheered, some screamed.
Cardia's dozens of damp black box braids weighed on her shoulders. Ophelia knelt beside her, face creased with concern.
Cardia clutched the corpse tighter.
"He's with the Tidemother now," Ophelia whispered, gently uncoiling Cardia's arms from the boy's waist.
Heavy steps plodded over to where Cardia lay. Captain Hernandez stood over them, head cocked to one side.
"Brought back some trophies I see," Captain Hernandez said.
Ophelia pulled herself to her feet, saluted the captain, and produced the orange mermaid hide.
Captain Hernandez nodded. "Very fine work, ladies. Fire scales are hard to come by." Her nose wrinkled as she noticed the corpse in Cardia's arm was human. "I don't know how we're going to identify that body. He hasn't even got a face."
"He had purple hair," Cardia said softly. "Looked like he was from the wetlands."
Captain Hernandez gingerly pulled the corpse out of Cardia's hands. "You did the honorable thing," she told her, "bringing him back. He can have a proper burial in freshwater." A few officers came forward to take the body away. Some poor family would receive a wooden box with a medal over their son's severed torso and a payment of thanks for his brave military service. It would have some story about how he fought valiantly in a great battle with a flock of mermaids and gave his life to save his comrades.
Laughter came from somewhere behind Cardia. Laughter. Someone was daring to laugh. She craned her neck to the side and saw two men, one holding a metal tube and the other leaning on his trident. They were laughing. Maybe at her. Maybe at her weakness. Maybe at the boy's death. Ophelia offered her arm and helped Cardia to her feet.
Cardia stomped over the sand, throwing her braids over her shoulder and drawing one of her fishing knives. The men beamed, increasingly entertained as she drew closer to them.
"No hard feelings, my dear?" the man leaned against his trident like a crutch, his eyes drinking in Cardia's soaking wet frame.
Cardia smiled and held out her hand. "Gentlemen, I must give you credit. I would have never thought of such a trap."
The trident man smirked. "Foul play is fair play and all that. I could school you on many things, gorgeous--"
His sentence was punctuated by a blade sweeping across his throat. His hands flew to his neck and came away wet with blood. He tried to speak, but the sound only gurgled. He crumpled to his knees, dying. Slowly. Cardia had been sure to cut deep enough to kill him but shallow enough that he would spend an uncomfortable amount of time bleeding out.
"What in the hells!" the other man aimed his ensnaring gun at Cardia. She stepped inside his grasp, as if she were about to hug him, and locked her hands on his head, snapping his chin hard to the left. His neck made one final crack before he tumbled to the ground, limp as a poppet.
Cardia felt Ophelia's reassuring hand on her arm. She had come to help, but Cardia had killed them both before she could even join her.
"Cardia..." Ophelia turned her toward a small crowd forming.
Over fifty pirates stared, their faces chiseled with horror and shock. One girl dared to speak. She wore a brand new diving suit with ornate details and embedded jewels. The child of some noble family, no doubt. "The trials were over, she had no right-" her voice trailed off, her hand moving to the hilt of her sheathed sword.
Cardia stared at her, daring her to draw. Anger pounded through Cardia's body, a stubborn, steady drum that stirred up heat in her gut. "I'll give you a trial," she told the aristocratic girl.
Captain Hernandez blew the conch shell, snapping everyone back to attention. "It has just struck one o'clock," she announced. "The trial is now finished."
"They were out of the water!" The aristocratic girl protested. "She struck them on dry land! The trial was over!"
Captain Hernandez narrowed her eyes at the girl who dared to challenge her. "Lady Perdita, the trial ended exactly at one. Any bloodshed between within that hour was sanctioned by the laws of the hunt."
"She killed two sons of noble families!" Lady Perdita snarled. "Their families will find her and string her from the crow's nest."
Captain Hernandez grabbed Lady Perdita by her gilded collar. "'Tis highest treason to kill a buccaneer."
"She just killed two of them!"
"They had not yet," Captain Hernandez said, "delivered the hide to me. I spoke no words over them, gave them no coats. They were still recruits."
Lady Perdita shrieked and marched right up to Cardia. "May Aje have mercy on your soul," Perdita spat on Cardia's boots.
Captain Hernandez blew the conch five times. "Students, welcome to the Buccaneers."