Shit, he’d thought, and he had nearly pissed himself when he saw her. It was always in the way that they carried themselves, and Fynn knew royalty when he saw it.
This girl, this should-be enemy on his ship, was a Rosebone.
A flash of her auburn hair had confirmed it, but Fynn had known her face, had seen it on the battlefield ten years ago. He would never forget what Silas Rosebone looked like, Sonamire’s beloved Prince who had burned and burned and burned his way through armies. The resemblance between them was undeniable, and looking at her now was like staring into the past through deep and murky waters.
He did not know her name, had not even known that a Princess of Sonamire existed. He doubted that many people did, and he wondered why King Avedis had kept her hidden, why he might have been sending her away.
But he did not have time to dwell on it, to ask her the questions that burned on the tip of his tongue. His ship was under pursuit, and if he was going to save this Rosebone, it would not be in vain.
The direwolf would keep her safe, and so Fynn launched himself across the deck. He scrambled up the stairs to the helm, his heart in the back of his throat and lungs seizing in his chest. Too much Magic—he always used too much of his Magic.
Riel was twisting the ship’s wheel this way and that, dodging rogue waves threatening to crash over the hull onto the deck. Water-Wielders, Fynn knew, summoning the tides to fell the Refuge.
“They’ll sink us,” Riel spat through her teeth, clinging to the helm to keep her footing. “Give them whatever they’re after, Fynn!”
“Shut up and steer.” Fynn’s eyes scanned the deck, counting the members of his crew still topside until he found the one he needed. “Arden!”
The deckhand whipped around with near-preternatural speed, pinpointing Fynn on the quarterdeck. She raised her chin to acknowledge she’d heard him call out to her, and Fynn saw the flames beginning to ignite like candles at her fingertips.
“I need fire,” he yelled down to her. “Heat the water.”
Riel grunted as she began, “Luca could do it faster—”
“I am not dragging our only healer into a firefight. If Luca gets hurt, the rest of us are screwed. Arden, the water!”
Arden closed her eyes as she stretched out her hands, reaching for the seas on either side of her. Plumes of such endless, searing fire burst from her open palms, spearing across the Emerald like spindly fingers lit aflame. The bounty hunters’ ship lurched back, the prow springing out of the water as their Wielders jarred it to a stop.
They could have easily extinguished Arden’s flames had their ship not taken priority, but Fynn had been anticipating their delay. He lifted his hands to summon a gust of air, funneling it over the Emerald and shielding Arden’s flames to keep them lit.
But he only needed a moment, long enough for his icy winds to stir the boiling water.
A thick, grey haze began to creep over the Refuge’s rails, inching above Arden’s flames and Fynn’s magicked air. He spun it colder, vicious, freezing, and it was not long before their conjured fog was sliding over the ship’s deck, thick enough that Fynn could hardly see Riel standing next to him.
He turned to her anyway and grinned. “You’re up, Earth-Wielder.”
“No,” she said stiffly, shaking her head until her braids slapped against her cheeks. “No, no, no, no. I am not taking out that ship.”
“I don’t want you to sink them,” Fynn told her. “Just conjure up enough earth to lift them out of the water. Strand them. We’re close enough to land that the water here isn’t too deep.”
Riel released the helm, but only to point her finger at him. “No,” she said again. “You know how I feel about disrupting life on the reef.”
“The fish will survive, Riel, but we won’t if you don’t landlock that ship. As soon as the fog clears, they’ll be on us. I don’t have it in me to fight them.”
Already, his winds were sputtering.
Riel’s mouth pressed into a thin, hard line, her nose crinkling like it did whenever the Quartermaster was displeased. “Their ship will crush the corals.”
“Riel.”
She gritted her teeth. “Fine, but thicken that godsdamned fog. I can still see their sails—I can still see you, and I don’t want to.”
It was a small victory, Fynn knew. One he would pay for later. As an Earth-Wielder, Riel’s soul was entwined with the roots of land. She hated disrupting its balance, the natural push and pull of rock and sea and life; she hated it almost as much as Fynn hated asking her to do it.
But now was not the time for Riel to disobey his orders.
She dropped to one knee and flattened her palm against the planks. She breathed in sharply through her nose, then exhaled slowly through her teeth. Fynn felt the rumbling of the earth, of the sea beginning to ripple beneath his ship, and braced himself against the helm.
It rose from deep within the cavernous fissures splitting the ocean floor, a perfect plateau of molten earth and life. Saltwater glistened over rock and reef, bursting through ruts in the stone and dripping from ancient stalactites. The Emerald churned at its base, ramming into the smoldering stone that burned hotter than Arden’s fire.
Riel strained from the effort of settling the plateau beneath the belly of the bounty hunters’ ship, panting as she collapsed to both knees. “I can’t raise it any further.”
She did not need to.
Bounty hunters screamed from the deck, the rigging, and the crows nest; they begged Riel to stop, to let them live, to show mercy. Their ship teetered on its stern, several inches of the groaning wood still submerged beneath the water. But Riel had risen several columns of near-black stone to pierce through the sides of the hull, holding the ship stagnant. Unless they had an Earth-Wielder to repair the damaged planks, they would not leave this plateau, not before the Refuge was far adrift at sea. They had never seen it coming.
Riel staggered onto her feet, and Fynn gripped her arms to keep her steady. “Good work,” he praised, but it was not without remorse.
Fish of every color were still floundering atop the stone, gasping as air filled their gills. A stretch of briny coral was crushed beneath the weight of the ship, and Riel’s face was pinched and marred with a barely subdued fury. “Don’t ask me to do that again.”
“I won’t,” Fynn said.
But he would. He’d do anything to save his crew. To save Riel.
She shoved him away from the helm, and Fynn loosened his hold on the wind. Arden had snuffed out her flames the moment the plateau had risen, and the fog was beginning to clear. They needed to go now, to escape before another ship could corner them.
“Where to?” Riel thundered quietly, gripping the helm with shaking hands.
Fynn swallowed audibly as guilt coiled in his stomach. “West,” he answered. “Like we’d planned. Towards Dryu.”
Riel turned the wheel, wrenching them around until the bounty hunters’ ship was behind them. Fynn summoned a final wind to carry them out to sea.
“What about the girl?”
For a single moment, he’d forgotten her, the Princess aboard his ship. Fynn peaked over the quarterdeck railing. The Rosebone was still huddled near the mizzenmast, clinging to her direwolf as if he would somehow save her. But her shoulders were no longer trembling, and now she sat stiff as a barrel, her braided hair the color of wine as it began to spill from beneath her hood.
The Captain bit his lip. “I’ll talk to her.”
Riel snorted, despite herself. “I’m sure you will.”
Fynn slapped the back of his hand against her shoulder. “Stay the course until Gracia returns topside. Afterwards, I want you to rest.”
For once, she did not argue, her Magic having drained the fight right out of her. Riel saluted him with two fingers to her temple. “Aye, Captain. Go converse with your newest damsel.”
He started down the quarterdeck stairs, counting his crew as he went. Ten, eleven, twelve… The rest were hiding below deck, and the
Rosebone made twenty aboard his ship. Gods, another damned mouth to feed. They barely had enough food to go around, and now he had to feed a Princess and her pet.
As if she sensed his approach, his footsteps heavy to avoid startling her, she lifted her head from the direwolf’s massive shoulder. Her ashen cheeks were flushed from the cold and stained with the tracks of fresh tears, and she cowered as Fynn knelt in front of her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, offering what he hoped was a kind smile. “You’re safe now.”
She opened her mouth, worked her jaw as if trying to find her speech. “I’m fine.”
The tremor in her voice said otherwise, but Fynn was not one to press.
“What were you doing in that port?”
The girl blanched. “I…”
She had not been trained in what to say, had not been prepared for this moment, and it was obvious. Fynn raised an eyebrow and waited.
“I live there.”
“Amongst the merchants and brothels and slave traders?”
It was a lie if he’d ever heard one. A girl like her would have been snatched off the streets a long time ago, her hair alone marking her as something desirable. She was pretty, in an innocent, doe-like sort of way, her hazel eyes wide and lashes thick with saltwater. Her nose was thin, her cheekbones high and rounded, and her jaw was soft and pointed. Men in Valestorm would have killed for her. One had died trying to have her.
“Yes.”
Fynn’s mouth twitched. “All right,” he conceded. “I won’t make you tell me the truth, but I did just save your life and risk my ship in the process. You owe me your name, at the very least.”
It was more curiosity than a dire need to know. He’d call her whatever she wanted.
She blinked at him. “It’s…”
Someone had told her to lie, to create a façade and stick to it. But she hadn’t taken the time to think it through. Not like Fynn had when he’d first joined this crew.
“My name is Fynn,” he offered calmly.
He dragged his fingers through his hair, his leather band lost to the wind. It was tangled with sweat and saltwater, and he tucked the loose strands behind his ears. The Princess watched him intently, her eyes tracking every movement.
At least she was observant.
“Your wolf’s name is Draven, right? That’s a Jadoan name.”
“Yes,” she said quickly, as if she had not known. “What’s your ship called?”
“The Refuge,” Fynn provided, shifting his weight from his haunches to sit cross-legged in front of her. “It’s fitting, don’t you think? All of us here needed asylum.”
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you a slave trader?”
Fynn tilted his head to one side, trying not to wince at the bite in her implied accusation. “So many questions from the stranger aboard my ship. I feel like I’m being interrogated in my own home.”
Despite the frigid air, warmth crept into her cheeks, turning her skin an even rosier pink. “I’m sorry.”
Fynn chuckled. “Tell me your name,” he said. “And I’ll answer any questions you have for me. But no, I’m certainly not a slave trader. Everyone aboard this ship is here at their own discretion—because they want to be.”
She met Fynn’s gaze and stared at him, deciding for herself whether or not she believed him. He dropped his chin into his palm, waiting patiently while she studied him. She was not the first to consider him with such confliction, though she did not try to hide that she was conflicted. Fynn saw it drawn across her face, in the way she chewed her bottom lip.
“If you can’t decide on a name to give me,” he said after a moment. “I can always make one up for you.”
She startled. “Excuse me?”
He tugged on her tangled braid. “I could always call you Red?” Fynn suggested, chuckling as she batted his hand away. “Lily is pretty, so is Talia. Come on, love, what’ll it be? We haven’t got all day.”
The Princess raised her chin, gathering some sudden confidence drudged up from deep inside of her, and pulled back the hood of her cloak. Her hair flashed copper in the sunlight. “My name is Sol,” she announced, and he knew it was not a lie. This girl was called Sol Rosebone; Sol, like the ancients called the Sun. “And I need you to take me to Nedros.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FYNN
“What in the name of all the Gods is a Rosebone doing on my ship, Fynnian?”
Fynn groaned as he stepped into his cabin. He collapsed onto the edge of his bed, exhaustion pulling at his limbs like it were a tangible thing with fingers to grip and prod at him. “Our ship,” he corrected. “And I’ve asked you not to call me that.”
His Quartermaster crossed her arms as she stalked from the corner of the room, a look in her eyes that the Captain knew well to be wary of. Riel was furious, the angles of her face sharp with unabashed rage, and not because she’d disrupted marine life.
Riel perched herself on the edge of Fynn’s desk, the heel of her boot scuffing the wood as she propped her foot back against it. “I’ll call you whatever I damn well please,” she sneered. “What is a Rosebone doing on this ship? And don’t you dare try and lie about who she is. I saw that mess of orange the moment she took off her hood.”
A heavy sigh escaped him. Of course she’d been watching them from the helm. “She’s here because had I left her in Valestorm, someone would have dragged her into the nearest brothel and sold her to the highest bidder.” Fynn leaned forward, his elbows digging into his knees. “This ship is a haven for people like her, Riel. We’re all runaways of a sort. You mean to tell me that you’d have turned her away?”
Riel’s lip curled over her teeth in a snarl. “Yes. She’s a Rosebone.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you deferred the title of ‘Captain’ to me.”
Fynn stretched himself out over the fur blankets halfway falling off his bed. His bones ached from the strain of his Magic, like Riel had taken her plateau and dropped its weight on his shoulders. The wind inside him was still roaring, still begging to be let loose as if he had anything left.
He took a breath, and a gentle breeze tousled Riel’s dark hair.
“She asked that I take her to Nedros,” Fynn informed her. “I agreed.”
Riel frowned at him. “Why? Nedros and Sonamire have had strained relations for years. There’s nothing there for her, and they certainly won’t be any more welcoming to a Rosebone than I am.”
“She seems to think they will be.” Fynn folded his arms beneath his head. “I didn’t ask her why, and she wasn’t inclined to tell me. It’s her business.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the King may be sending her there as a spy?”
Fynn snorted, his mouth quirked with a mocking grin. “Sure,” he said. “But Avedis is a pragmatist. If he wanted to see the Emperor’s head spiked to his castle wall, he’d have sent his son to do the job. Sol couldn’t hurt him if she tried.”
“Sol,” Riel spat, testing out the name on her tongue. “Why bother with his son when his pretty little daughter was enough to catch your eye and convince you to sail her across the sea?”
Fynn lolled his head towards her. “I hear that the Crown Prince of Sonamire prefers the company of men. Perhaps I could have been swayed if he were charming enough.”
Riel did not smile at him. “Need I remind you of what happened the last time a beautiful girl bat her lashes at you?”
The Captain winced. It was a wicked blow, even for her.
“Vasil—”
His breeze guttered to an icy draft that whisked the papers from his desk. “I know damn well what happened to Vasil. This is different.”
Riel placed her hands on her hips, her fingers hooking over the beautiful hilts of lethally sharpened knives. “Really?” she said. “Because Nedra was meant to seek asylum here, too. She caught your eye in a port just like Valestorm, and you snuck her aboard this ship without so much as even asking for Vasil’s pe
rmission.”
“That’s not fair—”
“The moment she learned there was a bounty on my father’s head, she forgot about how much she loved you. She turned him in like a prize bull on a butcher’s block.”
Fynn forced himself back up and leaned against the wall, his shoulders stiffening with tension. “Sol is royal,” he bit out. “She has no need to collect a bounty from anyone on this ship. With the amount of gold she offered me—”
“I don’t suppose you accepted her money.”
“Of course not.” Fynn swept a hand through his hair. “All she wants is a ride to Nedros, Riel. Four months at sea, and she’s gone. Not even half a year. You can live with that.”
Riel’s nostrils flared. “And what’s her story?” she demanded. “What was so awful that a Rosebone had to run away from home like a coward?”
The words were a lance through his chest, one that pierced his heart and left him there to bleed his sorrows. “All she said was that she lived in the port.”
She flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “You’re making a mistake, Fynn. This ship—”
“Was meant for people like her—people like us.” Fynn flipped his hand over. A thin, puckered pink scar sliced across his palm. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your father, Riel. When he left this ship to the both of us, he made me swear that I’d never turn anyone away who needed somewhere to go. There’s a reason he didn’t ask the same of you.”
He brushed his thumb over the scar.
He could still feel the warm, sticky blood that had pooled in his palm after Vasil had made him cut his own hand. He could still hear the promises that his former Captain had made him swear, his voice crackling with the youth of a fifteen-year-old boy. Fynn had screamed when the bounty hunters took him, when they’d dragged him by the hair of his head and hung him by the neck in the town square.
Fynn had never seen Nedra again, and Vasil’s neck had snapped the moment an old wine barrel was kicked from beneath his feet.
Riel tore him from his thoughts and said, “You swore to protect our crew, too.”
Fynn’s heart sank like the old, rusted iron anchor Riel always insisted they replace, his chest cleaving open as wide as the Emerald was deep. He would never stop falling, flailing, drowning to keep his crew safe. “You asked me to be the Captain, Riel, and I’ve done that. You didn’t want the responsibility. And apart from a few mishaps, I’ve never steered you wrong. Why don’t you trust me now?”
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