“What about Rook? For all we know, he’s already gone. You said so yourself. He’ll get word about this place to One-Eyed Jack, and when the storm breaks, the pirate king will have a whole month to loot the island. This only works if we come clean. At least then, people here can protect themselves.”
Ronan opened his mouth and shut it again without saying anything. He tried to find fault with Dean’s logic, but came up dry. Ronan slumped into a chair by the window. “Rook.” He said the name like a curse word. “Should’ve killed him when we had the chance.”
Dean smiled grimly. “Doesn’t exactly square with the Gentleman’s Code, does it?”
“What if we run like we planned?” asked Ronan. “We can still leave here today. Right now, before the storm hits.”
Dean shook his head. “I can’t leave. First of all, One-Eyed Jack will follow me to the ends of the earth. I know he will. Second, everyone here thinks I’m the prince. They believe it now. We can’t steal from these people, but we can’t bolt out of here either. Lord Kray’s a good man … an honorable man. Now that he’s met me, all bets are off. He won’t take the throne if I disappear. He’ll keep sending out trade ships to find me. And they’ll keep coming back with half-measure harvests when the people here need more. I’ve been thinking all night, but there’s no way around it. If I want to help these people, I have to tell the truth.”
Ronan sighed and leaned his head back. “They hate pirates here, Dean. With good reason. They’ll lock you in a tower and throw away the key when they find out what you are.”
“What if I tell them myself? If I can warn them in time, maybe they’ll show me some mercy.”
Ronan shrugged. “You going to stick your neck out on a maybe?”
Dean rubbed the back of his neck, an appendage he had grown quite attached to over the years. “You can still run, Ronan. You don’t have to get stuck here with me.”
Ronan tapped his ankle. “Wouldn’t get very far, would I? I’m lucky I can walk without a crutch right now.” He shook his head. “Best belay that talk. You remember Gentleman Jim’s orders as well as I do. No one gets left behind. We’re in this together.”
Dean nodded. “Hand in glove.” He was about to get up and shake Ronan’s hand when he heard a muffled cry coming from Rook’s room. He and Ronan exchanged puzzled looks, and got up to investigate. When they entered the room, Rook’s bed was empty. “Where is he?” Dean asked.
They heard the cry again.
“That came from the closet.” Ronan opened the door and found a person tied up inside. He was bound and gagged with a hood over his head.
“Rook?” Dean pulled off the hood, but it wasn’t Rook underneath. It was Jarret Ralian.
“What the devil?” Ronan sputtered.
“The devil is right. Something’s very wrong here.”
“You think?” Before Dean or Ronan could untie Jarret and ask how he got there, they were interrupted by a forceful pounding at the front door.
“Dean Seaborne! Open up in the name of the law!”
Ronan and Dean looked at each other as though they’d just locked eyes with Davy Jones. “What’s going on?” Ronan asked.
Dean ran his hands through his hair. “This is a setup.” He threw the hood back onto Jarret’s head and shut him up in the closet. “Come on,” he said, leading Ronan out of Rook’s room. “We have to get rid of them. Can’t let anyone find us like this.” Ronan slammed the bedroom door behind him, muting Jarret’s cries. The pounding on the front door persisted. “I’ll answer it,” Dean said.
He took a second to get in character and opened up the door. Arjent Ralian, his two elder sons, and a trio of palace guards were standing behind it. None of them looked very happy.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Dean demanded. “What do you mean ordering me around in the name of the law?”
“Precisely what I said,” Lord Ralian replied. “As minister of defense, I am the law on this island.” He pushed past Dean into the apartment. His entourage followed. Dean tried to block their path, but it was no use.
“I don’t remember saying you could come in.”
“I don’t remember asking. I’m looking for my son. He didn’t come home last night. As his father, I am understandably concerned.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“He was last seen in the company of your friend Rook,” said Junter.
“Seen either of them this morning?” Jin asked behind a wicked smile.
Ronan and Dean looked at each other like two explorers caught waist deep in quicksand. “Can’t say that I have,” Dean lied.
Arjent Ralian smiled knowingly. “Well. You don’t mind if we have a look around, do you?” He nodded to the guards, who started opening doors and looking inside trunks.
“Actually, I do mind!” Dean protested.
The guards did not heed Dean’s words. They went right on searching the apartment. “Is this how you treat your prince?” Ronan asked.
Lord Ralian stifled a laugh. “Still clinging to that, are we? My, but you are persistent.”
“How dare you?” Dean asked, feigning the appropriate level of outrage. It was clear that the time for pretense was over, but he didn’t know what else to do. “Get out of here now, all of you. If you’re lucky, I won’t tell the regent about this insult.”
Dean stopped talking when Junter Ralian whipped off the cover to Sisto’s cage. It was empty. Now Rook and the bird were missing. The day was hardly an hour old, and it had already gone from bad to worse.
“Hello?”
Waverly Kray knocked on the open door, and Dean winced. When he heard her voice, he knew the game was up. If she came in, there would be no way out. Not for him. Not anymore.
“Lady Kray?” Arjent Ralian said. “What are you doing here?”
She entered, cautious and confused. “I came to see the prince.” Waverly crossed the room to Dean. “You were so upset last night, I wanted to make sure you were all right.” She leaned in close to him and whispered. “What’s the palace guard doing here?”
Dean’s throat locked up. He had no words for her. Waverly was the first person he wanted to talk to that morning, but the last person he wanted to see at the moment.
“We’re looking for my son,” Arjent Ralian said, answering for Dean. “Jarret has gone missing. We have reason to believe your prince knows something about it.”
Dean found his voice. “I don’t know anything about—”
“Here!” Junter called out from Rook’s room. “I found him!” Every head in the room turned toward the sound of Junter’s voice. They rushed to Rook’s room, where Jarret was getting free of his bonds.
“My son!” Arjent Ralian exclaimed, sprinting to his side.
“What is this?” Waverly asked, horrified.
Dean took her by the arm. “I know what this looks like, but you have to believe me. I had nothing to do with this.”
“Liar!” Jarret shouted, once his brothers had removed his gag. “Don’t listen to him, any of you. They’re pirates!”
Waverly looked at Dean. “What?”
“Sound the alarm, quickly!” Jarret continued. “I caught his mate Rook snooping around the orchard last night after the banquet. I tried to stop him, but he overpowered me and I woke up a captive here. I heard them talking. They mean to signal their fellow buccaneers. We have to ready our defenses before it’s too late.”
“There’s a ship on the horizon!” Jin called out from the window.
“What?” Dean said.
Everyone ran to the windows, Dean and Ronan included. Ronan snatched Jin’s spyglass out of his hands and looked through it. After a few moments, he handed it over to Dean with a frown. “It’s the Maelstrom. One-Eyed Jack himself.”
“It can’t be,” Dean said, looking through the spyglass to see for himself. “How’d he get here so fast?”
Waverly gasped, and Dean realized what he had just said. He lowered the spyglass. She had tears welling up in
her eyes.
“It’s true?”
Dean was at a loss. He couldn’t believe everything had fallen apart so fast. “I was going to tell you. I was. Please, you have to believe me.”
Waverly put her hand to her chest and turned away. She looked like she might fall over. “I did believe you. I trusted you with everything. How could you do this?”
“I didn’t do this, I—” The anguish in Waverly’s eyes was unbearable for Dean. She could have run him through with a cutlass and it would have hurt less, but he deserved that. She didn’t deserve the pain he’d caused her. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Last night! Waverly, I swear it. This wasn’t the plan. I wanted you to come with me when I left.”
Waverly flinched. “You thought I’d come with you?”
“Yes! You said yourself you thought about running away. I thought this could be your chance. Our chance! To be free.”
In a flash, Waverly’s grief turned to fire. She slapped Dean hard across the face. “Yes, I thought about running away. My honor kept me here. Honor and duty! I stay true to the people I love. You’re a pirate. You know nothing of honor.”
“No! I’m not that kind of pirate.”
“There’s only one kind of pirate,” Jarret Ralian cut in. He put a sympathetic hand on Waverly’s shoulder. “Don’t waste your tears on him, my lady. He’s not worth it. He came here to steal our gold. Everything about this ‘prince’ has been a lie.”
Dean’s face fell. As much as he would have liked to, he could not argue with anything Jarret had said. All he could do was tell her he was sorry, but what was that worth? Apologies were just words. He hung his head in shame.
“Look at me,” Waverly said. Dean raised his head as she wiped away her tears. “This will be the last time our eyes ever meet. I never want to see you again.”
CHAPTER 30
JUSTICE IS SERVED
Iron manacles locked into place around Dean’s wrists.
He hardly noticed.
He was thrown into a cell in the Tower of Justice. He didn’t care. Dean went along without a hint of protest as the guards chained him and Ronan to opposite walls. By then, all the fight had gone out of him. He had been lost in a trance the whole shame-filled walk from the royal apartments to the top of the prison tower. Dean wasn’t thinking about himself or what might happen next. That no longer mattered. All he could think of was Waverly and the unmistakable disgust in her eyes when she found out what he was.
Arjent Ralian had led Waverly away to inform her father of his treachery and marshal the island’s troops. She had left Dean a shell of himself as she walked out the door. He couldn’t even muster the courage to call after her. Waverly had buried him with her words, just as he had buried her people with his actions. An invasion was coming. One he could have prevented if he’d been strong enough to tell the truth. That was the hardest part about all of this. It was his fault. There was no way around it. Waverly was right to turn her back on him, and he deserved to meet the end he had coming as a spy.
The cell door slammed shut and the palace guards left to help fend off the coming raid. The Ralian brothers stayed behind to gloat. “I told you I’d find out your secret,” Jarret told Dean with a smile.
It wasn’t until Dean saw the look on Jarret’s privileged face that his anger settled in on something other than himself. He set his jaw and clenched his fists. “You did this.”
“Of course,” Jarret boasted. “Took a little while to get everything sorted, but I think it all came off rather well in the end. I knew exactly what to do once I heard your story. Your friend Rook was only too happy to tell it.”
“Rook,” Ronan spat. “Where is that mangy cur?”
“I can honestly say I don’t care. I’ve no further use for him. Once he told me the truth about you, I let him go so he could signal your mates.”
“You let him do that?”
“I needed him to,” Jarret said.
Dean was baffled. “Why?”
Jarret held out his arms as if the answer were obvious. “I can’t very well expose you as a traitor without evidence of treason, can I?” He pointed to the window in Dean’s cell. “You should be thanking me. My father wanted you dead. I had a better idea.” Jarret tapped his temple. “I realized that killing you wasn’t my best option. It didn’t do anything to enhance my own reputation. By destroying you in this fashion and raising the alarm about an attack, I become the hero.” Jarret puffed up his chest proudly.
Dean looked out the tower window. “The hero.” He shook his head. “You think you’ve won?”
“Remind me, which one of us is locked in a cell? I think it’s safe to say I came out ahead.”
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Ronan said.
“Spare me your threats.” Jarret waved a hand, dismissing the warning. “We’re perfectly safe from your friends here. My father has commanded island security ever since the real lost prince was taken. I know this island’s defense capabilities inside and out. We can easily repel a single pirate ship.”
“That may be, but you’re not up against a single pirate ship.”
Jarret squinted at Dean, looking for the first time as if he might not have all the answers. He said nothing.
“What are you talking about?” Jin asked.
Dean nodded toward the window in his cell. “If I were you, I’d take another look outside. Your brother’s not as smart as he thinks he is.”
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence that was broken by Jin grabbing a key ring off the wall and nodding to Junter. “Come on.”
“What are you doing?” asked Jarret. “Don’t go in there.”
Junter and Jin brushed past their younger brother. “They’re chained to the wall, Jarret. I think we’ll survive.”
They unlocked the door to Dean’s cell and looked out his window. A moment later, Jin leaned against the window frame to keep from falling over. “Then again, maybe we won’t.”
“What is it?” Jarret asked. “What’s out there?”
Junter stepped aside with a grunt. “See for yourself.”
Jarret hesitated, but curiosity eventually got the better of him. He inched into the cell, checking his arrogant swagger at the door. Dean stared him down the whole way, but Jarret purposely avoided his eyes en route to the window. When he saw nineteen pirate ships on the horizon, he turned as white as a ghost. Sweet victory had turned to bitter ashes in his mouth.
“Can your defenses repel that?” Dean asked. “I could have told you.… One-Eyed Jack wouldn’t come after me with just one ship. You chose the wrong friends. Me, I don’t have any.”
“You reap what you sow,” Ronan told the Ralians. “You’ve ruined everyone on this island. Not just the pair of us.”
Jarret choked on his own breath and looked away without a word. He staggered a step and sat down in a state of shock, not unlike the one Dean was stumbling around in a few moments earlier. Junter nudged him with his toe. “What now?” he asked. Jarret didn’t answer. Junter prodded him again. “Well? You’re the smart one. You said so enough times yourself. What do we do now?”
Jarret gave no reply. He was all but catatonic.
Jin knelt and shook his brother by the shoulders. “Come on, Jarret, this was your plan. What do we do?”
“Get off me!” Jarret said, pushing Jin back. “I need to think.” He snapped out of his daze and got up onto his feet. Jarret paced the cell, running his hands through his hair and mumbling to himself. After a few quick laps around the room, he stopped and faced his brothers. “There’s only one thing we can do. Flee.”
“What?” Junter and Jin both exclaimed.
“You coward,” Ronan said, his voice dripping with disdain.
“How long until they make land?” Jarret asked, ignoring Ronan.
Jin looked out the window. “Not long enough.”
“Can we get out? On your fastest ship, can we make it?”
Jin moti
oned with his hand, gauging the speed of the pirate’s approach. “If we leave now … maybe. We’d have to hurry.”
“What about Father?” Junter asked.
The immediate reply was silence. After a moment, Jarret shook his head. “You heard Jin. There’s no time. We have to leave now.”
“Blow me down,” Dean said. “I have known some blackhearted, lily-livered scum in my day, but you three win the pr—AHH!”
Dean was interrupted by a hard blow to the jaw, delivered by Junter. Ronan charged across the cell to help him, but his chains halted his progress halfway there. Junter drove a two-handed punch into Ronan’s left kidney, dropping him where he stood.
Jin stepped up and kicked Dean in the stomach once, then twice more for good measure. “There. A little something to remember us by. You’re lucky we don’t have time to do you worse.”
Dean looked up, wiping blood from his lip. “You’d better hope we don’t meet again.”
Jarret took the key ring from Jin and threw it out the window. “Don’t worry. We won’t.” He and his brothers disappeared down the tower stairs as the sound of cannon fire filled the air.
CHAPTER 31
BITTER HARVEST
It took a few hours for the fighting outside to die down. Dean didn’t watch the battle from his window. It was hard enough for him to stomach without taking in the action. Dean had been around long enough to know what to expect from a raid and didn’t need to look outside.
First came the sound of cannon fire coming from the island toward the ships. That attack was met in kind by One-Eyed Jack shelling the island with an unyielding cannonade. Once the pirates arrived on gigs from the boats, Dean heard a chorus of muskets and flintlock pistols ring out. That went on for some time. There was fighting in the streets and people screaming as they were pulled from their homes. The clatter of steel cutlasses and the thunk of hatchets finding their mark was pervasive. Before the fighting was over, he knew people would use dirks, daggers, sticks, stones, and whatever else they got their hands on. Through it all, the outcome was never in doubt. Dean and Ronan spent the battle trapped in their cell, forced to listen. When silence fell at last, it was a mercy.
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