A muffled yelp of surprise escapes him as he stumbles back and lets go of me to put a hand over his wound, but I pay him no mind. My eyes are still up, my attention ensnared on Sail’s body.
Down. I want to get him down.
My ribbons work viciously, directed with barely a thought, fueled by anger as red as a fire claw’s flames, despite the fact that they’re soaked-through and heavy.
One after another, the bindings fall away from Sail’s body, until someone grabs me from behind and spins me around.
I come face-to-face with Captain Fane, his brown eyes searing, his face uncovered. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarls.
His hands grip my arms so tightly that he pinches my skin despite the layers of my sleeves covering me. I shove at him, but the slaps of my hands do nothing against him. He barely even notices it, because he’s too busy looking behind me, looking up.
To where my ribbons are cutting through the last of the ropes.
The captain’s eyes widen. “Shi—”
Before he can finish his curse, Sail’s body is falling.
It crashes over us, cold flesh and stiff muscles knocking us down, tearing me out from the captain’s hold.
I land in a jolted heap, Sail’s legs sprawled over my torso. The sound of footsteps pound toward us, voices yelling through the whipped wind.
I roll out from under Sail and outstretch my ribbons again, making them wrap around his body. Around and around they go, until he’s bound from neck to hip, and then I start to pull.
He’s heavy and both of us are soaking wet, but my ribbons pull as hard as they can, refusing to let go. Inch by inch, they drag him across the puddling deck.
The strain is instant along my spine, the muscles at my back burning with every tug, already exhausted. But I have no time to slow, no time to rest between heaves, because the Red Raids are coming for me, the captain is snarling, vile anger in his expression as I pull Sail’s body toward the edge of the ship.
“Stop!” Captain Fane shouts—not at me, but at his men. “I’ll fucking deal with her.”
Dread swarms around me, but I don’t let it show on my face, I don’t let it stumble my steps.
Because I don’t care.
I don’t care that the captain has a promise of punishment on his face as he stalks toward me. I don’t care what he’ll do to me for this. Because he killed my friend. He killed him, and I couldn’t stop it.
But I can stop this. I can stop the Red Raids from dishonoring Sail’s body. So I will.
With gritted teeth, with sweat and sleet dripping down my temples, I heave. I keep two ribbons loose, poised at my sides, ready to lash out at any who approach or try to stop me.
But the pirates backed off at Captain Fane’s order, so it’s just me. Just me, dragging Sail’s body slowly—too slowly—as the captain stomps toward me, fists clenched and eyes raving.
My back hits the railing of the ship, and I waste no time to lean down, placing my hands under Sail’s arms. I pull as hard as I can, ribbons straining with me as we try to get him up.
Heavy. So damn heavy.
My back sags against the railing, panted breath butchering through my chest, the wind and rain making it hard to breathe, to see. My body is frozen through, my fingers slippery and numb.
Being this spent and labored is a consequence of my own idleness. I was too useless, too passive, all those years in my cage. My ribbons slip around Sail.
Weak, I’m so damn weak.
My golden eyes find the saddles where they’re standing off to the side, huddling in their circle, as if they can keep out the weather, the world. “Help me,” I beg them.
My eyes go to Polly, who managed to get my golden coat again, the gold fur wrapped around her to help ward off the rain. But she stays still, unmoving, unwilling.
“Please,” I plead, finding Rissa next. But she doesn’t move either. Maybe Rosh… But he looks away as soon as my gaze finds him.
Outsider. Even when I’m trying to help one of our guards, a guard who was kind to each and every one of them, I’m the outsider. I’m on my own.
Captain Fane laughs. “Not even your fellow whores are willing to help you.” His voice is so thoroughly pleased.
I sniff, forcing myself to keep it together, to not give up. Sail didn’t give up, not for a second. I can do no less for him.
I will do this.
I heave again, ribbons straining, pulling at the skin of my back, like sewing needles threaded through the muscles.
Captain Fane takes a taunting step closer to me. Close, but not close enough for my ribbons to lash at him. He studies them, taking in the way they curl, the way they tug. Vile eyes flick up, a crooked smile showing off those few wooden teeth. “Look, Reds. A true fuck puppet. She even comes with her own strings.”
Mocking mirth surrounds me. Their laughter horrible, their words worse.
I block it all out, my teeth clenched so tightly together that my jaw jumps. Amidst the ongoing snickering, I manage another hefty tug, and I get Sail’s body propped up at last.
My back screams with fire, while rain and sweat drip along my spine, but it’s nearly enough...it’s nearly there...
The captain’s mouth curves up in cruel amusement as he watches me continue to struggle. I must look pitiful, pulling a guard who’s nearly a hundred pounds heavier than me, soaking wet in a puddle.
“Are you trying to jump overboard and ride your dead guard like a sled?” the captain asks, making some of the pirates behind him chuckle.
He holds up his arms and turns full circle, displaying the desolate land all around. “Hate to break it to you, but we’re in the middle of the Barrens, you stupid cunt. You’re not going anywhere.”
My body shakes, my ribbons strain. But I don’t give up. I don’t give in.
The captain steps closer, testing my boundaries, pecking at me, looking for an opening.
In a snap decision, I wrap the remaining two ribbons around Sail, leaving me defenseless to the captain’s advances. All of this will be pointless if I don’t.
The last two ribbons give me the extra strength I need.
Captain Fane lunges for me, but he’s too late, because I’ve hauled Sail’s body up and over the side. The second I do, my ribbons unwind from his body, passing him over to gravity’s clutches, and he falls.
Falls, falls, falls, landing right in a pile of pillowed snow far below.
I lean over, watching, chest heaving, dropping icicle tears into the rain as our ship slides past.
A blink, and Captain Fane is there, snatching my ribbons in a vise-like grip. He crushes them together in his fist, yanking them tight against my spine, my back arching painfully.
“You foolish bitch. All that fuss, and you failed. Couldn’t even manage to make the jump.”
He yanks me away from the railing and starts to drag me away, but he’s wrong. I wasn’t trying to escape. I never intended to jump. I couldn’t survive the fall anyway, and they’d only catch me if I managed to somehow make it.
No, I accomplished exactly what I meant to. I got Sail away from here. Away from these pirates, off this ship.
His place of rest might be a mound of snow in the middle of the Barrens, but it’s better than the alternative. I couldn’t let him stay strung up for a second longer.
I get pulled harshly, quickly across the deck, toward the captain’s quarters, toward that punishment his eyes promised.
“You can’t disrespect his body anymore,” I say boldly. Bright side. It’s the only bright side I have right now to cling to, as bleak and grim as it is.
Captain Fane’s grip tightens on my ribbons in anger at my words. They’re tired, wet, and wilted, crushed in his hold and sapped of strength, same as me.
“Fine,” he says against my neck as he leads me on. “Then I suppose I’ll just disrespect yours.”
Chapter Thirty
If my poor ribbons weren’t crumpled and stuffed in Captain Fane’s fists like we
t parchment, if they weren’t so exhausted and waterlogged, I might be able to rip them from his grasp and defend myself. I might be able to fight back.
Unfortunately, his hold is firm, pulling so harshly that my muscles and skin burn with every movement. If he pulls any harder, it feels as if he’ll rip them clean from my back, like yanking off a finger or plucking out an eye.
I try and fail to get them to rip out of his hands, but they’re too smashed, too wet, too tired. I’ve expended all my pitiful strength on getting Sail’s body off this cursed ship.
But at least I managed it.
I make myself a promise right here and now though. If I somehow make it through this, if the Red Raids don’t ruin me completely, I won’t allow myself to be stagnant anymore. I won’t allow myself to be so weak and inept.
I should’ve known better, after my childhood, after all the things I’ve been through. I should’ve known better than to become so complacent or languid.
If I could go back, I’d shake myself. I became like Coin, that solid gold bird forever resting on his roost. I clipped my own wings, I stayed listless on my perch.
So if I make it through this, if I live, I vow to myself that I won’t let it happen again. I won’t sit idly by and keep letting men crush me in their fists.
With the scar at my throat as a stark reminder, I firm up, crystallizing into a hardened rock of resolve. The healed line tingles, and my mind shifts to Digby. Did the Red Raids kill the scout who saw their movement? Did Digby and the others unwittingly follow the scout right into death?
I don’t know, and I don’t dare ask. Partly because if Digby and the others are still out there safe, I don’t want to tip the captain off. But another reason, a darker reason, is that I can’t bear to be told that the pirates killed them. Not yet. I can’t face that just yet.
For now, my mind needs for Digby to be out there, living and breathing. Maybe he’ll find Sail, in that grave of flurried snow, and lay some sort of tribute at his burial, one to stay with him in this desolate place while his spirit moves on to the great After.
It’s a nice thought, anyway.
His hold still rough, Captain Fane finishes dragging me to the back of the ship. I get hauled up a short five steps from the main deck, to the higher captain’s quarters. The wall is plain, save for a red slash marked down the door, a short eave jutting off the gable above.
My face is shoved against the closed door, my cheek pressed into the white weathered wood, splinters threatening to splice through my skin.
He holds me there with his forearm crushing my back, one fist still holding my satiny strands like a leash on a dog. With his other hand, he fishes into his pocket and pulls out a key, shoving it into the lock of the door.
I start struggling, though my efforts are weary. But I know for a fact that I don’t want to go inside. The moment I cross that threshold, things will happen—bad things.
“Hold still, or you’ll only make this worse for yourself,” he snaps.
Of course, that just makes me try to get away even more, but he shoves his hips against me, using his legs to pin me in place so I have nowhere to go, no way to move. I want to cry at the helplessness of it all, but I swallow that down. There’s no time for that, no time to break down.
He turns the lock with a click, shoving the key back into his pocket. But before he can turn the handle, Quarter calls for his attention. “Cap! We got a hawk!”
Captain Fane turns to look, keeping me stuck shoved against the door. I can’t see him, but I hear Quarter stomping up the stairs.
“Just came, Cap,” Quarter says as he stops beside us.
From the corner of my eye, I can see a large tawny hawk with a black beak sitting on Quarter’s forearm, talons digging into the fur.
The captain grabs a small metal vial off the bird’s leg and unrolls it, careful to keep it held beneath the eave, blocking it from the haggard rain. It’s a short piece of parchment, though its length grows as he unrolls it. All I can see is a messy scrawl of black, but the captain’s brows draw down, water dripping off his beaded beard as he reads.
Captain Fane mutters something I don’t catch and then shoves the parchment and vial into Quarter’s chest. “We need to send a reply?” Quarter questions.
“No. They’ll be here before the hawk could deliver it, anyway.”
Quarter frowns at the captain before replacing the empty vial on the hawk’s leg. As soon as it’s secure, the bird takes flight, shooting up into the sheet of rain and disappearing from view without a sound.
“Who’s going to be here?” Quarter asks.
Instead of answering, Captain Fane holds out a hand. “Give me your sash.” Quarter blinks for a moment before he reaches beneath his furs and begins to loosen the white sash tucked around his torso.
Captain Fane turns his attention to me. Without a word, he starts to wrap my ribbons around my torso, pulling them so taut that it makes me grit my teeth in pain. He wraps them around and around, until their long lengths are completely bound around my middle, and then he ties the ends all in a knot, so tightly that I can’t move them at all.
“Get all the saddles in the kitchens and put them to work. Cook needs to get a dinner ready to be served within the hour. We have guests coming.”
He holds out his hand again, and Quarter quickly passes over the sash. The captain wraps it around me, just as tightly as he wrapped my ribbons, and ties that off too. Another deterrent in place to keep my ribbons immobile.
The captain spins me around and lowers himself so we’re eye-to-eye. His expression is angry, severe. “If any of the saddles try anything or disobey in any way...I want them stripped, whipped, and tossed overboard.”
Quarter nods at him, though his eyes are on me. Even with his red band over his face, I can tell he’s grinning. “Aye, Cap.”
With one last lingering glare my way, Captain Fane shoves me toward Quarter before storming off to the front of the ship, shouting orders about changing course.
“Alright, come on, you. And don’t even think about fucking up with those puppet strings of yours, or I’ll slice them clean off your back.”
The skin along my spine flinches, like the ribbons heard the threat.
With a grip on my arm, Quarter leads me down to the main deck again, straight over to the huddled saddles. “Right, you cunts! Follow me!”
Quarter doesn’t wait to see if they listen as he turns us, heading for a set of stairs in the middle of the ship that leads below deck. I can hear footsteps trail after us as Quarter and I make our way down the creaking stairs.
We pass through a narrow corridor, and then we go deeper into the back of the ship where we enter a long galley kitchen that reeks of potatoes and smoke.
At least we’re out of the storm and the kitchen is warm, thanks to the cast iron oven with roaring flames inside its belly. The walls and floors are made from the same white wood as everything else, except it’s been stained, black with soot in some places, splatters of old food stuck on others.
Standing over the iron oven is the cook, the only pirate I’ve seen so far who isn’t dressed in the same white fur as everyone else. He’s in a simple white leather vest and trousers instead, his meaty arms bare and littered with sloppy tattoos. He’s stout and short, with a crooked jaw that juts to the side, and a low brow that makes me wonder how well he can see above the pot he’s stirring.
A scowl crosses his ruddy face when he notices us enter. “What the damned hell I got women in my galley for?”
“Cap’s orders, Cook,” Quarter replies. “We got guests coming, apparently. We need a meal served up deck.” He jerks his head in our direction, where all of us are grouped together near the doorway. “They’re your help.”
Cook lets out a garbled string of curses, but Quarter pays it no mind. “Cap wants it ready by the hour.” Cook sends him a crude gesture but starts to yank out tinned supplies from the cupboards.
Another pirate comes in and leans against the wall, a dagg
er held in one hand as he stares at us. A guard dog to watch us and attack, if necessary.
Quarter looks back at us. “I’ll warn you now. Cook’s the meanest bastard of all of us. Getting whipped and tossed overboard will be the least of your worries if you fuck up in here.”
With those lovely parting words, Quarter pushes past us and walks out, leaving us alone.
Cook takes one look at us and narrows his eyes, using a rag to swipe over his sweat-lined face. “Well? What the fuck are you waiting for? I’ll boil your fucking hands if you don’t get to work. This meal ain’t gonna cook itself.”
I tense and so do the others, but then Rissa strides ahead, leading the way once again, getting the others to follow suit.
I stay at the back of the group, trying not to flinch every time Cook screams at us or tosses food our way. We hustle to do everything he says, even with our teeth chattering, our clothes and hair sopping wet. When one of the saddles accidentally makes a puddle on the floor, he kicks her down and makes her sop it up with a tiny, useless rag.
And all the while, as I chop and stir and wipe, with Cook snarling and the pirate guard watching, I try to work my ribbons loose, try to get the knots undone bit by bit without anyone seeing.
I have no idea who sent that messenger hawk to the captain, or who’s coming here, but I know the options are bleak. No one good would come to dine with the Red Raids.
Yet no matter who’s coming, I’m grateful for the interruption. If it weren’t for that letter, I would be in the captain’s clutches right now. The thought makes me shudder.
Even so, I know that this reprieve is temporary. Fleeting. I know that before this long, horrible night is through, I’ll be stuck in the captain’s clutches again. So all I can do is try to work my ribbons, and hope I don’t get caught.
Chapter Thirty-One
Quarter wasn’t exaggerating when he said that Cook was a mean bastard. The only sort of direction we get are pans thrown across the room when we don’t move fast enough or a snarl if we dare to ask him a question.
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