“Enter.”
“You wanted to see me, Captain?” Kintra stepped in.
“How is the crew?” asked Alōs, turning in his chair to regard his quartermaster as she stopped before his desk. “Are they any better?”
“Most seem mollified after the lashings, though some would have preferred more blood.”
“They always do,” mused Alōs.
“Perhaps extra chores for her will quiet the rest?” suggested Kintra.
“Whatever you think necessary.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Kintra waited in silence as he stood, going to the decanter of whiskey on his bookshelf. He poured them each a glass.
“How is she?” he finally asked as she took his offered drink. Alōs did not need to meet his quartermaster’s eyes to know they would be studying him.
“Mika tended to her. She’s resting below deck.”
“The damage?”
“Two of your lashes went pretty deep. There’s a lot of swelling and will be a fair amount of bruising but no lasting injury. Mika believes she’ll be fine come the storms.”
Alōs nodded, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. He hated that this news both relieved him and angered him. Foolish girl, he thought. Why could she not follow orders like the rest?
Because she’s not like the rest, an unwanted voice responded in his head.
No, she is not, agreed Alōs, though that made him feel no better.
“And you?” he inquired to Kintra. “How are you faring with her behavior?”
She paused before answering. “I said she’d be trouble.”
“Aye, you did.”
“But you assured she was worth it. So I must ask . . .”
He waited.
“Is she still?”
Alōs took a deep breath in, letting the question settle, a prickling of unease along his skin.
“She now knows my history in Esrom, who I was there.”
“We all know you were a prince, Alōs. And just like always, no one cares. Everyone here has a past.”
He shook his head. “She also knows of the Prism Stone.”
Kintra’s eyes went wide. “And yet you did not have her killed?”
“We’ve amended her binding bet. She’s to do all in her power to help me find the other part, and once it’s back safely in Esrom, her sentence with us will be served.”
Kintra snorted her disbelief. “Surely she cannot be as valuable as that?”
Alōs drew his brows together, not enjoying his decisions being questioned. “She has connections of great value, or do you not remember who showed up to save her? Plus, it is because of Niya we were able to find where the other part of the stone resides.”
“We could have found that out without her, and you know it.”
“Perhaps,” said Alōs. “But not as quickly, nor without making a dangerous enemy out of Cebba.”
“We have many dangerous enemies. What’s one more?”
Alōs threw back his drink, letting the burn of the whiskey calm his growing irritation. “It’s one more I’d rather not deal with.” He hated that he felt his quartermaster’s inquisitive stare as he rounded his desk. With a frustrated sigh he sat.
“How are you, Captain?”
The question momentarily startled him. No one ever asked how he was. But this was Kintra, he reminded himself. “I’m . . . tired,” he answered truthfully, leaning his head against his chair’s back.
Their eyes locked, her brown gaze filled with understanding, before she went to retrieve the decanter. She refilled his drink. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but I’m sorry for your loss.”
Alōs swallowed the discomfort edging up his throat as he waved away the sentiment. He had become an orphan long before his parents had died. “It is nothing more than what most of us have already lost.”
“Still, I am sorry for it.”
“I imagine not half as sorry as you’ll be for what still lies ahead.” He sipped his drink.
“I knew that sailing with you would mean many adventures.” She smiled, showing a few of her gold-capped teeth.
Alōs laughed at that, the sound foreign even to himself. He used to laugh a lot. “I ask you to remember that sense of adventure once we reach the mist.”
“I expect you’ll be near to remind me.”
Alōs studied his companion, always thankful for her steady way of being. She had shaved new lines into her strip of hair, and a few more gold rings lined her ears. “Tell me honestly,” he began, “are you okay with where we sail? We haven’t returned to the west lands since—”
“My feelings don’t change the fact that we must. It seems we are all revisiting old lives lately.”
“Yes, the lost gods test us.”
“So let us win.”
“I am working on that.”
“I know,” she said.
Alōs ignored the bit of sympathy in her tone.
“I must ask,” Kintra went on. “While I believe you when you say Niya has value, are you sure she can be trusted until the end? There’s no denying she’s a bit of a wild card. She may end up more in our way.”
“With her binding bet ending earlier now at stake,” said Alōs, “she will be better behaved.”
Kintra didn’t respond, merely sipped her drink.
“How about this,” said Alōs. “If she’s not, I’ll let you deal with her. The lost gods know I’m over being her wrangler.”
Kintra gave him a grin. “It would be my pleasure.”
He snorted at the joy in her tone. If only she truly understood how much of a fighter Niya was. “I cannot wait for this entire bloody thing to be over,” said Alōs before finishing his second glass, the burn a strange comfort along his frozen resolve.
“It soon will be, Captain,” assured Kintra. “And we will be laughing at the entire memory as we have with all our past adventures.”
“This is why I keep you around.” He leaned forward to refill each of their drinks, Alōs suddenly desperate to feel numb, to quiet all the responsibilities swirling through his mind. This was the easiest road to get there. “One of us must be the foolish optimist. Now, come”—he raised his glass—“let us drink to laughing at impossible tasks.”
“And to seeing how well a wooden ship contains fire,” Kintra finished with a wry grin.
Alōs hesitated, remembering Niya kneeling before him, strong and determined and not crying out once as his whip hit his mark. He had seen none of her orange magic seep from her, despite knowing how it must have wanted to erupt and lash back. She had kept it controlled.
She had contained her fire.
But for how long?
Was this still what Alōs wanted from such a powerful creature as she? To cage her?
Alōs shook off his confused thoughts as he sipped his drink.
He waited to feel the soothing warmth down his throat.
Yet this time, the burn held no comfort.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Niya smelled like a chamber pot as she knelt, scrubbing the upper deck.
The crew walked all around her, busying themselves in their duties as they sailed through the colder western seas, but none had yet to utter a single word to her.
Though it had been a week since Esrom, since her lashings, it seemed the pirates were still holding strong to the memory of her spelling them. Despite her even being loaded with extra chores on top of her own, all while her back had remained raw and needing to heal.
The only crew to show her any sort of forgiveness was Mika, as Niya had come to him each night in his kitchen. There he’d given her clean dressings and helped her wash the blood out of her shirt, which had inevitably gotten restained each day until her lashes had scabbed over.
“We’s a proud sort,” he had said to her one night as she’d stood with her back exposed, allowing him to gently clean her wounds. “And we’s don’t forget easy. But give us time, Red. You’ll see more of us comin’ around soon.”
/> Niya was still waiting for that “soon.”
What sensitive children, she silently grumbled as she sat back on her heels, throwing her scrub brush into the bucket of water at her side. Her fingers ached from the work, and she wiped the sweat from her brow, taking in a deep breath of the cool, salty air.
Though she still did not regret her choice to follow Alōs or spell the crew, she did not exactly enjoy being a pariah on board. She hated to admit it, but she missed Bree’s incessant chatter as they lay in their hammocks and Therza’s unhinged laughter after she made a rather disturbing joke as they worked together to clean the cannons.
Now there was only silence when Niya drew near, whispers, or backs turned to carry on conversations without her.
It was all rather . . . lonely.
Niya stood with a sigh, stretching her sore muscles before cringing as the movement pulled at her wounds. She still could not sleep on her back, which made finding a comfortable position in her hammock rather difficult to accomplish.
Still, though her skin felt tight, she was thankfully healing, flesh stitching back together to allow her shirt to be easier to wear, her chores not as painful to bear.
Niya had experienced her fair share of bruises and cuts from sparring with her sisters and even the occasional tough beating when their father had joined them in the ring, but she had never experienced such a harsh lashing as this.
It still could have been worse, she thought, gazing out at the churning waves beyond the port side. She could have been whipped and not have shortened her binding bet. At least now she had a fighting chance of returning home sooner. She had made a bargain she finally felt she could win.
Niya’s mood lifted ever so slightly as she scratched gingerly at the new scab forming on her shoulder.
“I’ve got some seaweed oil that can help with that.”
Niya shielded her eyes from the sun as she glanced over to find Saffi approaching. The stocky woman wore her gray braids twisted atop her head today, a thick brown coat around her shoulders. While the day was bright, these western waters clung to a chilly breeze.
“And what must I do in exchange for it?” asked Niya. As this was the first time any of the crew had spoken to her, Niya was more than skeptical. “Sew up all your trouser holes? Clean the stains from your underwear?”
“First, the holes in my trousers are there on purpose,” explained Saffi. “Second, I’m merely trying to be nice. But it seems you’re only in the business of making enemies and keeping them.” She turned to leave.
“Wait,” Niya called. “I’m sorry. Nobody has approached in any friendly capacity since Esrom. I can’t tell when someone is being kind anymore.”
Saffi leaned a hip against the railing beside them. “Then I welcome you to the life of a pirate.”
Niya gave her a small smile. “How do you deal with it?”
“Being a pirate? Or not getting on people’s bad side?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“I try to enjoy this life while also not breaking rules.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Yet it appears rather hard for you to do—at least when it comes to the captain.”
Niya’s chest heated with silent contempt at the mention of Alōs, her gaze going to the quarterdeck, where his large presence loomed at the other end of the ship, Boman beside him at the wheel. She had not spoken to Alōs since her lashings. Each of them seemed perfectly fine to keep their distance. They might momentarily be on the same side when it came to finding this Prism Stone, but he was still very much her enemy; her deep-rooted anger toward the man remained strong. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“When I tell you to do things for our team, you always comply, rather happily. But it seems painful for you to follow the captain’s orders.”
Niya shifted her weight with discomfort as she glanced out to the sea rather than meet Saffi’s gaze. She had no desire to explain her history of animosity when it came to Alōs.
“He went easy on you, you know?”
Niya frowned, turning back to Saffi. “Excuse me?”
“The options of your punishment for sneaking onto Esrom and using your gifts on us,” she explained.
“I was whipped, Saffi. And then was given all these chores with hardly any time to heal.”
Despite Niya having accepted her sentencing, her pride still smarted at the memory of kneeling before Alōs and all the crew to take her beating.
“Yet the skull of the last pirate to disobey him in Esrom is decorating his quarters,” Saffi pointed out.
Yes, well, that pirate obviously didn’t have the leverage I have, thought Niya. Plus, she’d like to see Alōs try to take her head. She was quite certain, without the restraint of their binding bet, it would be his severed skull in her hands in the end.
But she didn’t say any of this to Saffi; instead she merely shrugged. “So he’s getting soft in his old age.”
Saffi laughed. “Hardly. It seems he takes different liberties with you. I’m starting to wonder why.”
Niya did not enjoy the master gunner’s scrutinizing gaze. As she brushed back strands of her hair that had escaped her braid in the wind, Niya schooled her growing annoyance that some of the crew seemed to be watching her and Alōs’s interactions more closely than she’d have liked. “I think you’re reading too much into things. I was punished like any of you would have been. Besides, you all voted for me to be lashed.”
“Yes, because of all the punishments the captain put forth, it was the harshest. Death was never on the table.”
Niya snorted at how cavalierly Saffi could talk about wanting Niya to be killed. “How disappointing for you all.”
“It’s just interesting, is all,” she said, her eyes still assessing.
“Yes, well, maybe with Prik and Burlz gone, he couldn’t afford to lose any more of his pirates.”
“Maybe,” mused Saffi, folding her arms. “But the crew are talking.”
Great. Niya rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure they are.”
“Some believe you two share a history. Especially since the Mousai showed up after you were brought aboard.”
By the stars and sea, thought Niya. The last thing I need is the crew poking around in my business or thinking I have some hold over their captain that would afford me special treatment. It would only have them resenting her more.
Alōs had shown her no favors, no charity. Only agreements and wagers. The only language they seemed to agree on. But she couldn’t tell Saffi about that.
“I had a heavy debt to pay,” was Niya’s only explanation.
“Is that what your binding bet is about?”
Niya kept herself from hiding the black marking peeking out of her shirt sleeve. “Do none of you have something tying you to this ship?” she accused, her magic fluttering in her gut along with her irritation. She was quite over this interrogation. “Or did you all walk aboard free men and women, ready to be commanded and ordered around?”
Saffi studied Niya a moment, letting her sharp retort float away in the breeze. “Did you know this isn’t the first pirate ship I’ve sailed with?”
“Uh . . .” Niya blinked, confused by the sudden turn in their conversation.
“I used to sail aboard the Black Spider. Lucia Pallar was her captain.”
“I think I’ve heard of that name,” said Niya. “But . . . didn’t the Crying Queen sink her years ago?”
“With the very cannons we clean every day.”
“I thought pirates kill the crew of other ships they commandeer.”
“Normally they do,” said Saffi, playing with the fine fur lining her coat sleeve. “But Captain Ezra works a bit differently than others, as I’m sure you well know. He’s a dirty pirate. Ruthless, to be sure. He cut down Lucia quick. Didn’t even give her the rights of last words. But he gave those of us that survived the battle the option to leave. He offered a rowboat and a chance to find a new life in Aadilor, maybe even go back to old ones. Or we c
ould serve him on the Crying Queen. But he told us that once we decided to serve and pledged our loyalty to him, the only way out would be through the Fade.”
“And you chose to stay?” asked Niya, pinching her brows together. “After he killed your captain, pillaged your boat before sinking it?”
“Aye.” Saffi nodded. “But he gave me something Pallar never did.”
“A constant headache?”
Saffi grinned at Niya’s dry retort but shook her head. “A choice.”
Niya drank in the word. Choice.
She always believed that choice was a facade. A game of odds. Only a small part of someone’s life could be self-decided; the rest was a product of commands by kings and queens or of chaos, a timeline of uncontrollable outcomes. Choice. It reminded Niya of the thrill she felt when betting—giving in to life’s gamble.
“We all have histories here, Red,” continued Saffi. “People we were or planned to be. I never dreamed of being a pirate, but when Pallar came to my fishing village, it was either follow her or follow the rest of my family to the Fade.”
Niya’s chest tightened. “Pallar killed them?”
“She never wasted time on adults. Said they were already too stuck in their ways. Kids she could mold. Felix over there is from my village, too, not that he talks enough to show if he remembers.”
Niya glanced at the thin boy standing next to her bunkmate Bree. She was coiling rope into a pile, chatting animatedly while Felix remained silent, his eyes far away as he sat playing his fiddle. Niya realized the melody he preferred was always a bit somber, but it appeared to be how he best expressed whatever it was he could not speak.
It reminded Niya of Arabessa. She often took to her instruments to deal with her thoughts, preferring bow to string or fingers to keys over talking about what was in her heart.
Seeing the familiar behavior in Felix set a heavy ache in her chest. A quick longing for home.
She took in a steadying breath, turning back to Saffi. “But if you were stolen from your village, why stay when you could leave?”
Saffi glanced to the endless blue water surrounding them. “By that time, the only home I had was the sea. What would I have found if I’d gone back?”
“You could have started over.”
Dance of a Burning Sea Page 22