Zella needed to make peace with two things that happened that morning.
The first was that her father and his crew of degenerates had left her behind.
Their company was no place for a young woman to be, he’d said, and then he gave her a swift boot off the ship. Literally. The fall from the upper levels of the ship completely knocked the wind out of Zella when she landed on her back. She laid on the black sand beach struggling for air, her lungs rattling like death was in them—and off he went into the arctic waters without so much as a look back at her from the deck of his ship.
The second thing she needed to make peace with was that she had watched them all die.
Something struck the hull after they’d gotten so far out, it splintered through the wood as if it were a toy and many more icy projectiles followed until the men were diving overboard. They were ripped apart in the water, and the ones that weren’t froze to death long before they made it to shore. Zella wondered how they had even made it to the beach under such perilous circumstances. Especially after the men had said women were bad luck on a ship.
Zella knew she should have felt some kind of epicaricacy over what had happened—instead, she felt nothing. Just a hollow ache in her chest and a want for a father who never wanted her in the first place. She wondered if he would have even claimed her if her mother had not died in childbirth.
The black-haired girl wrapped her dark fur coat tighter around herself as wind whistled over the black sand. She turned away from the frigid sea and started making her way toward… somewhere.
Her father had said he was bringing her back ‘home.’ So wherever this was, must have been where she was born—and him, and her mother, and so on. Maybe.
The man wasn’t known for his honesty.
From black-haired girl to black-furred wolf, she shifted and then bowed down into a stretch with a yawn. The cold was becoming unbearable as a human—and while this still wasn’t warm, she bounded up the snow drifts and padded carefully over the rock. There had to be some sign of civilization around here and she knew she’d only find it by climbing high enough to see.
Nova
The first was that her father and his crew of degenerates had left her behind.
Their company was no place for a young woman to be, he’d said, and then he gave her a swift boot off the ship. Literally. The fall from the upper levels of the ship completely knocked the wind out of Zella when she landed on her back. She laid on the black sand beach struggling for air, her lungs rattling like death was in them—and off he went into the arctic waters without so much as a look back at her from the deck of his ship.
The second thing she needed to make peace with was that she had watched them all die.
Something struck the hull after they’d gotten so far out, it splintered through the wood as if it were a toy and many more icy projectiles followed until the men were diving overboard. They were ripped apart in the water, and the ones that weren’t froze to death long before they made it to shore. Zella wondered how they had even made it to the beach under such perilous circumstances. Especially after the men had said women were bad luck on a ship.
Zella knew she should have felt some kind of epicaricacy over what had happened—instead, she felt nothing. Just a hollow ache in her chest and a want for a father who never wanted her in the first place. She wondered if he would have even claimed her if her mother had not died in childbirth.
The black-haired girl wrapped her dark fur coat tighter around herself as wind whistled over the black sand. She turned away from the frigid sea and started making her way toward… somewhere.
Her father had said he was bringing her back ‘home.’ So wherever this was, must have been where she was born—and him, and her mother, and so on. Maybe.
The man wasn’t known for his honesty.
From black-haired girl to black-furred wolf, she shifted and then bowed down into a stretch with a yawn. The cold was becoming unbearable as a human—and while this still wasn’t warm, she bounded up the snow drifts and padded carefully over the rock. There had to be some sign of civilization around here and she knew she’d only find it by climbing high enough to see.
Nova
