There wasn’t even time to cry out before the massive wave overtook their vessel entirely. The last thing Nell remembered was trying to cling to her brother’s hand before the force of the water slammed her head into the side of the boat, and the world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Five
CLARK
The island before us was around the size of the second tier of Central Island, but that’s where the similarities ended. The temperature here was mild, a midday warmth that would likely turn to a breezy evening. It should have made the island inviting.
Instead, the gray stone wall and militant castle lent credence to the captain’s comments about the island being inhospitable. It was hard to imagine my gentle brother coming from this harsh place.
According to the map, the island was shaped like a fat U, upside down from our vantage point. In order to dock, the ship would have to sail in the narrow point between the two sides of the island, which were known to be lined with soldiers.
I trusted my brother, but the entire situation made me uneasy. The Levelians had training and technology on their side, sure, but I doubted it would be enough to best the home island advantage and sheer numbers on shore, if it came to that. I pushed the thought from my head.
Addie was right. Gunther would never put any of us in danger.
It was decided that the captain, Locke, Gunther, Xavier, Addie, and I would make up the group to go on shore. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Addie was in that group, but Gunther insisted she come. As though I had summoned her with my thoughts, her laughter carried down from the upper deck to where I was standing with my brothers and Locke on the main level.
I smiled. It wasn’t a common sound, and I wondered what had precipitated it this time. Then, she sauntered down the stairs, and I couldn’t force my brain to work well enough to wonder anything at all. It was like everything I had been working so hard not to think about was crashing down around me at once.
Instead of the flowing linen she had taken to wearing on board, she was dressed in Ceithren styles. A brown leather corset worn over a collared cream-colored shirt emphasized her tiny waist. Fitted black pants tucked into knee-high black boots with a pointed heel rounded it out.
Where did she even get that outfit?
It brought me back to the night we’d met, when I was convinced she was a cold, spoiled heiress. It hadn’t taken long for me to admire the way she sat in a ruined dress on the muddy ground just as the emperor sat atop his throne. Her iron will even had Xavier begrudgingly impressed. That much had been evident from the start.
It had taken longer to catch small glimpses of her compassion toward my younger brother and the way she hid her grief behind her sharp wit and carefully applied cosmetics.
Addie swaggered down the stairs, ignoring the intrigued looks of everyone on the boat. She had managed to cover her bruise up entirely, but I still wanted to murder whoever had given her one more thing to pretend she wasn’t affected by.
Does she even realize how gorgeous she is? There was a time I would have assumed the answer was yes. Now that I knew her better, I wasn’t so sure.
She was walking closer now. My eyes couldn’t help but linger on her red lips and remember the way they had felt against mine. I couldn’t honestly believe I had dredged up the willpower to stop her — twice. Taking in the rest of her, I noticed she was putting back on some of the weight she had lost, her curves filling out the outfit in a way it was hard not to notice.
And damn it, I wanted her. More than wanted her, I -- I didn’t know anymore. She was broken, but then, so was I. She was also real and stubborn and…
Merde.
My brothers were right.
Xavier cleared his throat and Gunther shook his head. It took me a moment to realize why. Addie was standing in our small group now. Everyone else had greeted her, said something normal. I, on the other hand, had been standing there with my mouth open, staring like an idiot. I closed my mouth.
“What is it?” she asked, face oblivious. I might have accused another woman of being coy, but Addie was so genuinely bad at reading people, my thoughts were probably safe from her.
“Nothing,” I answered, straightening and giving her my signature grin, hoping I looked more composed than I felt. “I was just wondering where they got shoes to fit you.”
Locke let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
“Oh.” Addie’s brow furrowed. “Nell found them for me. There were all kinds of stuff in those chests in the…” She hesitated for a split second, face hardening into the haughty mask she loved to wear. “… in the store room,” she finally finished, a twist to her lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice, what with all the time you spend in there.” She turned away to talk to the captain.
Xavier laughed out loud, then tried to pass it off like he was laughing at something Gunther said and not at all because he was listening to Addie. I wished there was a subtle way to kick him.
The captain shouted a few orders, and the ship headed for the narrow waterway. Heading into an unknown, potentially hostile island wasn’t the ideal time to try to talk to Addie. Gunther hadn’t said much about this island other than a few terse sentences giving us an idea of what to expect.
Which is why we weren’t surprised when the wall was suddenly lined with soldiers in full shining armor, all pointing weapons in our direction. We raised our hands, as Gunther had instructed us.
Captain SuEllen shouted in a voice that carried, “We’d like to exercise our right to parlay.”
“We don’t grant parlay to outsiders,” a voice called from the wall. I conveyed it to Gunther.
“I am no outsider. I invoke my rights as a citizen,” Gunther yelled.
There was a silence where the men appeared to be murmuring amongst themselves.
“Proceed,” the same voice yelled at last. The soldiers didn’t leave the wall, but they didn’t fire, either.
“What’s to stop anyone from claiming that?” I asked my brother.
“They’ll kill you if you’re lying.”
That would be a deterrent.
There were more soldiers waiting for us when we docked the ship. I was noticing a theme with this island. Two, actually. When the men closest to us pulled their helmets off, they revealed curly heads of hair, either red, blonde, or some combination of the two. There was not a single head with hair darker than Gunther’s fire engine red, and their skin tones were uniformly pale also.
“Only you.” A blonde man standing in front looked at Gunther, clearly identifying him as the native. Not that that would have been a challenge. Addie was the next palest person here, but her chestnut waves didn’t appear to fit in. The rest of us were clearly not of this island.
“No, I am allowed a retinue.” Gunther gestured to the five of us. He spoke with a haughtiness I had never heard from him before. In our short debrief about this island, he had told us strength was the only thing they respected here. I wondered if he had told Addie the same thing, if that’s why she had chosen to dress the way she did.
Focus. I pulled my gaze away from Addie.
The soldier narrowed his eyes. “Very well. Follow me.”
We disembarked, Locke in the lead, followed by the captain, then Gunther. Addie was directly behind him. I went behind Addie, keeping my eyes resolutely north of her waistline, and Xav took up the rear.
Even the order we walked in was decided ahead of time, but Gunther wasn’t very forthcoming about the reasoning behind all of this. The look on his face had been enough to convince even the captain not to push him for answers.
That and his uncharacteristically bare hands. One look at his scars combined with his knowledge and clear hatred of the island was enough to put the pieces together.
The rest of the crew and Nell on the captain’s deck, looked on with thinly veiled apprehension when the soldiers surrounded us on the walk to the island. We kept our faces stony. Maybe that was why Gunther had insisted on having A
ddie come along. Haughty expressions were one area in which she excelled.
The clinking of the soldiers’ armor was the only sound as we walked from the wooden planks of the dock to the stone cobbling of the walkway until the gate clanged shut behind us. I tried not to think of it as ominous-sounding, but nothing about this, from my brother’s abnormally grim features to the soldiers lining the courtyard before us, felt like a good thing.
Looming immediately before us was an enormous castle. Another navy-clad soldier ran to meet the man heading up our procession. He leaned close, but his words carried even to the back of our line.
“The president will see them now.”
The Princess
The first thing Nell felt upon waking was a profound relief. The gentle rocking of the boat beneath her was familiar by now. They had survived.
The next thing that came to her was a dull ache in her head. She was struggling to open her eyes when deep, male voices drifted through to her consciousness. Relief was replaced with something less certain.
“The lass is stirring, Jacob.” The unfamiliar voice so close to her ears jolted Nell’s eyes open.
A man with an unruly amber beard towered over her, drifting in an out of focus as she swung on some sort of net. She tried to shrink back, but she tangled in the netting.
“Easy there, lass.” Another man was in the room. His beard was darker, but just as wild, and his head was bald. He must have been Jacob.
“Where?” She croaked, not able to get another word out. The darkness was trying to take her back, but she wanted answers.
“We fished you outta the sea. You’re safe here, though. None on this boat would hurt a child.” At Nell’s confused glance at the net, he added. “It’s called a hammock. A bed of sorts.”
“My family…” Nell forced the words from her dry throat.
The two men exchanged a look Nell wished she couldn’t read quite so well. The first man stalled by offering her a few sips of water from a tin cup, which she accepted without taking her eyes off Jacob’s darker ones. She knew what Jacob was going to say before he even opened his mouth.
“You were alone when we found you.” He helped her to a cot where she could lay down.
“Perhaps they washed up on shore nearby,” she offered.
“I’m sorry, lass. Truly I am, but we’re hundreds of miles from an island.”
Nell closed her eyes, surrendering her consciousness gratefully this time.
When she next awoke, someone had placed a light blanket over her. The man, Jacob, slept in a chair in the room. His eyes opened when she stirred. Nell fiddled with her bracelet. That and her rucksack had managed to survive the storm. It had a few dents, and she wondered if the mechanism would even work now. Neither of them said anything for a moment before Jacob finally spoke in his rough voice.
“Where were you headed? Our merchant vessel is on its way to Central Island, but Cap’n allows we could get you where you need to go. He has a daughter, you see.”
PeNelope tried to process this information through the man’s thick burr. Her princess lessons came rushing back to her, the only thing she had to cling to in that moment. Never let on how little you know.
“That’s not necessary, though I appreciate it. I’m headed to Central Island as well.” She was now, anyway.
Jacob nodded.
“I reckon we’ll make port in a week’s time. What’s yer name?”
“P—.” She hesitated. Her mother had always said it was unseemly for a princess to go by a shortened name. Only her cousin and occasionally her aunt had called her Nell, though she privately thought of herself that way often. But Nell didn’t have to be a princess anymore. She didn’t have to be anything. Which was convenient, because in this land, away from Levelia, she was nothing. “Nell,” she finally said. “My name is Nell.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
ADELAIDE
“Of the country?” I blurted out.
Gunther’s shoulders tensed, and I belatedly remembered he had instructed us not to speak.
“Questions are a sign of weakness,” he had said. He had also warned us that women were treated differently here, but I was hoping being an outsider would work more in my favor than he realized.
I did have some experience using my gender to my advantage, after all. I made my eyes wide when the guard turned to look at me. Let them think me an idiot.
Sure enough, the man looked me from feet to head before answering. “The president of SkyBlue Industries, ma’am.”
My brow furrowed, and I let the confusion show while hiding the way my mind was furiously working. Why are we being taken to a company instead of a government entity? That was how things were done on Central Island, but I had always been led to believe it was unusual, the way my father’s company had taken so much authority.
The soldier smiled this time, filling in the blank with his explanation. “SkyBlue helped our country out of a tight spot a couple of decades ago. To show his appreciation, the King put them in control of the island’s security.”
Ah, yes. Men love a little woman to take care of.
“Enough talking, Sven. They are not in the clear yet,” the man up front called.
“Yes, sir,” Sven responded, but not before winking at me.
I gave him a small, appreciative smile I pulled from nowhere. I had never been good at playing the game, but finally being dressed had given me the confidence to try. And from his answering grin, I wasn’t doing too badly.
I heard a short, snarky cough behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn around. Clark probably found me ridiculous. I didn’t care. I had little to offer this trained group, but I would do what I could for Gunther. Besides, I was putting too much effort into not tripping on the cobbled steps in my heels to bother with much else. I had been on the moving ship in flats for too long.
The castle was further away than it looked, but we passed the rest of the walk in silence.
“If we’re seeing the president of SkyBlue, why are we going to the castle?” I asked no one in particular, hoping the same soldier would speak up. I was rewarded for my efforts when he did.
“This is SkyBlue Castle,” the soldier said. “The King’s castle is further inland.”
I nodded, adding the information to my burgeoning picture of Picaro’s power structure.
The gray stone castle had yet another gate, which was opened when our group arrived. Finally, we were in a courtyard, heading to the main entrance. There, we were frisked for weapons. Well, I wasn’t. SuEllen’s sword was hanging obviously, so they confiscated it. Locke and the brothers were thoroughly vetted, but they seemed to think my outfit didn’t lend itself to hiding weapons. They were wrong, but I certainly wasn’t going to point that out.
The men escorting us handed us off to another armored guard detail, who led us inside. Sven gave me another wink before departing. The castle’s interior was as cold and uninviting as its edifice. I had yet to see a single family or thing of beauty. Everything was built with a brutal practicality for defense.
They led us up several flights of stairs, clinking in their impractical get-up, and down enough corridors that I was certain they were getting us lost on purpose. The joke was on them, if they were. Even in my brief time with him, I had noticed Gunther’s unparalleled attention to detail. I doubted seriously that he was lost, especially if he had been here before. Which was good, because I certainly was.
Finally, when my sore legs were aching from the effort of the trek, we made it into an enormous, windowless room. An oval table sat in the center, and maps lined the walls. It looked like a war room.
But it was the man at the head of the table in a high-backed wooden chair who gave me pause. His glacial eyes watched us without a shred of emotion.
No one spoke as the guards showed us in. The man I presumed to be the president waved an imperious hand for us to sit at the table. Locke hesitated, clearly preferring to be on his feet, but eventually, we filled in the seats in a row,
in the same order we had been walking in.
“Leave us,” he commanded.
“But President,” one of the men objected. He trailed off when the president leveled him with a look.
The guard left, closing the door behind him with a clang. The president looked around the table, his gaze lingering on Gunther longer than the rest of us. He didn’t speak again, and we sat in a tense silence for a full minute.
“We’ve come to purchase supplies to repair our ship,” said the captain.
The president’s eyes flickered to her, then away as though she hadn’t spoken at all. It was hard to say whether it was because she was a woman or if it was all part of the games he was playing.
Gunther spoke next. “It is within my right as a countryman to seek temporary asylum. It makes economic sense for you to allow us to purchase supplies with which to repair our ship. We will pay ten percent above market cost and be gone by sundown. Do we have an agreement?” Gunther’s face was neutral, as was his voice, but his hands were trembling under the table.
I wanted to reach over to comfort him, but I suspected the president missed nothing, and I would not have a hand in making Gunther look weak before this man.
“No,” the president responded.
My heart sank.
“At least not yet. I will consider your deal, but I want to talk to you without your retinue, first. My sons are coming. We will wait for them.”
Gunther’s jaw twitched.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two.”
“Then I shall keep two as well,” Gunter said, “and you’ll do more than consider the deal. You’ll take it.”
My eyes widened at his boldness. Not only was this a side of Gunther I had never seen, but I had thought we would be treading more carefully with the most powerful man in this country. Apparently not. My jaw nearly dropped when the man agreed with a terse nod.
The Tempest Sea Page 18