Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) by Dana Marton

Little sisters, little brothers, come to us, please.
    I sang my song over and over while swords clanged and clattered a short distance away.
    And then suddenly a man shouted, “Fish!”
    Then another. “Fish!”
    In but a moment, they were laughing and cursing, yanking silver fish up on deck one after the other until they had enough to fill a barrel.
    The fight stopped as Grun abandoned the merchant in favor of food. Both men were bleeding, but neither was mortally wounded. My first thought, of course, was to heal.
    Batumar flashed me a hard look.
    I flashed my best hard look back, but he was right. I was so weak from hunger, had I taken any injuries upon me, I wouldn’t have lived. If the captain ordered, I would have to help, but the captain, like his men, was too distracted by the sudden appearance of food.
    Some of the fish were eaten raw, the men mangling them like animals. Then, after the first rush, they began gutting them and skinning them, frying the meat on the braziers that were brought up on deck and lit.
    During the storms, we had no fire on the ship, but now, with the calmer seas, the captain had allowed heat once again.
    We had nothing to trade for food, but he allowed us some fish nevertheless, his eyes narrowed as he watched me. His one tooth flashed black as he spoke. “I’ve ne’er seen fish in a lull.”
    I smiled at him innocently, as even Batumar looked at me with suspicion.
    The merchant had taken his charges belowdecks and carried food to them, one whole grilled fish wrapped in an empty potato sack. They did not return for the remainder of the day, but they came up again the day after that.
    Fish kept coming. I thanked them for their sacrifice, and thanked the spirits as well for their kindness.
    But by the end of that following day, I was beginning to think that calling the fish might not have been the wisest act. The small fish—the size of a man’s arm—were followed by the bigger fish that hunted them. Dark fins filled the water.
    Then the big fish were followed by even larger fish that hunted those. They jostled our ship almost as badly as the storm, as if the Doomed was a mere boat. They crashed into us so hard at times in the feeding frenzy that I worried they would break the hull. Even the captain was casting concerned looks toward the water.
    I did not think matters could get much worse, but then, in the dim light of dusk, the great fish came.
    Its glistening black bulk, many times the size of a whale, rose out of the water slowly, like an island. If Rabeen had indeed been built on the back of a fish, it was one like this, I thought, dazed.
    Some of the pirates stared with mouths agape; others ran down below. One man jumped into the sea on the other side of the ship and tried to swim away from us. His screams echoed off our limp sails as the finned predators of the sea devoured him.
    No one paid his death struggle any attention. We were all transfixed by the great fish that rose from the waves until he was taller than our ship, its two monstrous eyes staring at us unblinking.
    Then suddenly the pirates ran, all toward the hatch that led below deck, some still with sword in hand, beating others out of the way, some of their mates tossing their swords and cowering.
    I stood still, my limbs frozen by the sight of the giant monster in the sea, my mind furiously churning. I had reached out to the little fish. Could I reach this one?
    I tried to feel what it felt, see what it saw, think what it thought. I tried to feel the cold water that half submerged its great body, as if I was submerged myself. I tried to feel the intermittent, slight breeze on my back, tried to see our ship the way the monster saw us as he stared blankly at us.
    Since I was in the prow of the ship, I was closest to him. Batumar stood with his sword drawn next to me. On my other side, the merchant came up with the children, his rapier in hand.
    I sang silently in my heart to the monster. Oh great lord, forgive us for