“Knives encrusted with fancy rocks?”
His sigh was one of the longsuffering. “Crystals,” he groaned. “My knives are encrusted with crystals. Be nice, and I’ll lend you a pretty one.”
Sol was still giggling as the Captain led her into his cabin, Draven on her heels and Riel watching them intently. The Princess pretended not to notice.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FYNN
He knew exactly which knife he would give to her.
The one he kept hidden beneath his pillow was a small, silver-bladed hunting knife with a curved hilt carved from ash wood. It was inlaid with sparkling blue sapphires, the rich, deep stones the color of the sky before a storm. And although he had never used it, Fynn was remarkably fond of it. This last gift from Vasil was easily his most prized possession, more precious than even his dragon scales and geodes, but it did him little good collecting dust beneath his pillow.
He turned the knife between his fingers, his thumb smoothing over the rippling steel blade. “This is my favorite knife,” Fynn told her, vaguely aware that Sol was peering over his shoulder. “You can’t lose it.”
“You don’t have to give it to me.”
Fynn flipped the blade as he turned to her. “You need a weapon,” he said. “And this is the smallest I have. It shouldn’t be hard for you to handle.”
He offered her the hilt, gripping the blade between his index finger and thumb.
It took her a moment to reach for it, to curl her fingers around the blade. He did not acknowledge how she trembled, how her breathing hitched as the hilt curved perfectly into her palm. Sol’s grip on the knife was wrong, her fingers too close to the blade and her thumb pressing into the steel, but he did not acknowledge that, either.
“I don’t know how to use this,” Sol said quietly. “I don’t know where I would…”
“Stab someone?”
Sol’s cheeks flushed scarlet. “Yes.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t have to.” Fynn pried away her fingers to adjust her grip on the hilt. “The blade is sharp, so watch yourself. Luca’s healing only goes so far, and I don’t think he can reattach severed appendages.”
She dipped her chin as she studied the knife, turning it precariously as if the blade would shatter.
Fynn withdrew a second knife from beneath his pillow—two were better than one, and Vasil had always taught him it was better to be safe than sorry—and gripped it loosely in his hand. He pointed the blade at Sol’s chest, the tip hovering above her heart.
She gasped, her eyes widening with alarm. Draven snarled from his position near the door, his tail thumping against the dull throw rug he was sprawled across, but he did not rise to defend Sol.
Her voice quivered as she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Showing you where to stab someone,” Fynn answered. He lifted the blade and tapped it against her throat, against the pulse that jumped beneath her skin. “Here, or in the heart. Messy, but they’re quick kills.”
Sol swallowed against the blade. “And if I miss?”
“I’ll make sure that you don’t.” He tossed his knife onto the bed. “Stay close to me on the bounty hunters’ ship, and you’ll be fine. There shouldn’t be any surprises, but my Magic has replenished enough that swords won’t be necessary should we come across any.”
“You really killed them all?”
It was not fear that lingered beneath Sol’s words, but a blind curiosity for what the Captain had done. Perhaps he had not given her enough credit—he was still expecting her to cower from him.
“I blew them dozens of feet into the air,” Fynn told her. “Hundreds, even. They’ll have died when they hit the water, and that’s not including those whose spines cracked against the masts.”
She did not so much as flinch. “Do you regret it?” Sol asked. “Killing them?”
“No.”
Sol blinked at him.
Her hazel eyes were swallowed by a depthless green, the color of the sea when the Emerald stretched calmly across the horizon. Fynn noted the soft flecks of gold, the dark ring of brown around her pupils. He had never seen anything quite like them, especially not now as they raged with such inquisitive marvel.
“Would you do anything to protect your crew?”
Fynn’s eyes fluttered. “Anything,” he said. “They’re my family.”
“My brother told me you would,” Sol said quietly. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about my Magic. He said that a sensible Captain would kill me if he thought I was a threat to his crew.” She tightened her hold on the knife. “But that’s not an excuse—not a good one. I should have told you I was a Wielder, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, love. You had no reason to trust me.”
“I had no reason not to, either.”
The Captain shrugged. “I know now,” he said. “And that’s all that matters. Death is a plausible fear, and most other Captain’s would have thrown you overboard the moment they discovered what you were.”
“But not you.”
He grinned. “But not me.”
Footsteps thudded near the threshold. Fynn casually stepped in front of Sol, an instinctual movement of his body after years of protecting the ones he loved. He’d always been a buffer between Riel and her father when they fought, between Gracia and Luca when the twins were at each other’s throats. Sol was a stranger on this ship, but after the attack on the Refuge that morning, he did not know who might have discovered who she was, who might have a score to settle with the Princess’ father and were willing to use her as a punishment.
Riel propped herself up in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. “We’re ready to go,” she drawled. “I suppose our new Wielder will be joining us?”
Fynn angled himself towards Sol. “Now is your chance to change your mind.”
Sol worried at her bottom lip. “You’ll only tell me about the crystals if I come?”
The Quartermaster snorted. “That’s the bargain you made with him? Tell you about the crystals and you’ll join us?” Riel’s teeth were startlingly white in the dim cabin lighting. “If you wanted to know about the Captain’s fancy rocks, all you had to do is ask. He’s obsessed.”
“Crystals!” Fynn complained. “They’re crystals, you godsdamned heathen.”
Sol stifled a quiet laugh behind her fingers.
“He was looking for new pieces to add to his collection when he found you that day in Valestorm. Didn’t you ever wonder why that bag he gave you was so heavy? It was full of rocks.”
Fynn pinched the bridge of his nose. “Remind me again why I keep you around?”
Her smile was horribly wicked. “To inform pretty girls that you’re more than just a charming little Captain.”
Fynn groaned and ushered Riel from the cabin, shooing her away with a brisk wave of his hand. “Get out,” he said, then turned to Sol and tapped the hilt of her blade. “Hide this in your boot and keep it concealed. Don’t take it out unless I tell you to.”
The Princess of Sonamire frowned. She fumbled the knife through the laces of her boot, taking extra care to tie the strings around the blade to ensure it wouldn’t slip loose. He did not tell her that in doing so, she’d rendered the weapon useless. She’d never free it quickly enough to use it.
But he’d promised that she would not have to, and Fynn was a man of his word.
Fynn waited until she stood up straight, until the knife was secure inside the Princess’ fur-lined boot, and looped his arm through her elbow. “We’ll have to use the gangplank to cross onto the other ship,” he informed Sol, leading her from the cabin. “Will you be all right?”
The color drained from her cheeks. “I’ll fall overboard.”
“I won’t let you.”
“Can’t we cross together?”
“No,” Fynn said. “But I can use my Magic to steady you. I’ve done it hundreds of times, and I’ve even saved Riel from plummeting head-first into the sea. I promise you, you’ll be all right
.”
Sol drew a shuddering breath that Fynn felt deep in his own lungs. “I trust you.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It warms my heart to hear you say that.”
And it warmed his heart indeed, that traitorous thing inside his chest that beat in time with the wind.
Sol demanded that Draven stay in Fynn’s cabin to wait for her, and when the direwolf had finally resigned from stamping his paws and snarling in eerily human-like frustration, Fynn led her to the group of deckhands that Riel had assembled for this mission.
Milo and Jax were bickering quietly back and forth, the latter punching his brother in the arm over a quiet sneer beneath his breath. A girl called Tiphan was smiling with Riel near the gangplank, a quiver of arrows strapped over her back and her bow propped against the hull.
“Are we ready?” Fynn asked, patting Sol’s arm and gently shaking her loose.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Riel snipped. She grabbed the ship’s rail and swung herself up onto the gangplank with a familiarity that Fynn knew Sol must envy. Her shuffling feet only confirmed it. “You don’t mind if I go first, do you?”
“Cross to the deck and nothing more,” Fynn said. “You’ll wait for the rest of us.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Fynn took a breath as Riel spun on her heels, her braided hair a whip in the ocean breeze. Her boots pounded over the walkway, her arms flung wide as the wood bowed beneath her weight. Fynn wrapped his Magic around her middle, a gentle wind that gripped her waist to ensure she kept her balance. Fynn did not feel like swimming today, and there was no one else brazen enough to jump in after her should the Quartermaster plummet into the sea.
The others crossed without incident, and when he and Sol were the only two that remained, Fynn turned to the Princess and offered her a steady hand. If there were any part of her that hesitated, she certainly did not show it beyond squeezing his fingers until they ached.
Fynn nudged her towards the gangplank. “Step up.”
She took the railing in her empty hand. Sol stumbled as she hauled herself onto the walkway, her fingernails cutting sharply into Fynn’s skin as he steadied her. “One foot in front of the other,” he said calmly. “I promise, I won’t let you fall.”
The breath she took was filled with the Captain’s Magic, a soft gust of air that he prayed helped soothe her fear.
Sol placed one foot in front of the other. Left, right, pause. Left, right, pause. Her arms floundered at her sides, and if not for the wind that Fynn had wrapped around her middle, he was certain she’d have toppled sideways and plunged into the water below.
“You’re almost there,” Fynn encouraged. “Just a few more steps.”
Sol leapt onto the deck of the bounty hunters’ ship. She bent at the waist, her hands braced on her knees, and panted as if she’d swum the hundreds of miles back to Sonamire. Riel was grinning as she clapped her on the back, her lips moving with words that Fynn could not hear. He prayed to the Gods they were kind. Sol would never cross back over if Riel mocked her.
With the ease of a man who had done this for half his life, Fynn lifted himself up onto the gangplank. Balance had always come naturally to him, his Magic a permanent tether that never let him fall. His earliest memories were of walking along the narrow edge of a beautiful granite fountain, his mother smiling as she warned him not to fall into the water. He never had.
Fynn stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants and quickly swaggered over the walkway. Sol was still flushed and gasping for air when the Captain jumped down in front of her, his mouth twisted with a grin as he playfully tugged on her braid. “We’ll work on it.”
“How do you do that?” Sol wheezed. “That was terrifying.”
He laughed and touched her shoulder. “Practice.”
“We’re headed below deck,” Riel called over. She was already lumbering for the stairs, her footsteps purposefully heavy to warn whoever might be hidden below. “I assume you’ll take the Captain’s quarters?”
“He might have hidden something useful there.”
Riel rolled her eyes. “If you hear screaming, I suppose that means we need you.”
Fynn snorted and waved at her in dismissal.
The Quartermaster and her fellow crewmates disappeared down the darkened stairwell, their boots scuffing noisily against the rotting planks. Fynn waited until Riel was out of sight, her hair blending into the darkness of the corridor, then looped his arm through Sol’s. “Stay close to me.”
Not that he was giving her much of a choice.
Her swallow was audible. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“This is an older ship,” Fynn explained when the planks creaked beneath their feet and Sol clutched his arm. “And it’s seen combat. Bounty hunters don’t care about maintenance; so long as their ship stays afloat, that’s good enough. They don’t scrub the salt from the deck or bother to patch up holes if the ship isn’t at risk of sinking.”
“How do you know it’s seen combat?”
Fynn pointed at the deep, wicked scorch marks blackening the ship’s hull. “See those? They’re probably from Fire-Wielders. There weren’t any when they boarded my ship, so they likely encountered them during a raid.”
“Oh.”
He slid Sol behind him as they reached the cabin. Fynn fiddled with the serpentine handle, the silver twining like a coiled snake poised to strike at them. He used his Magic to blow open the door. Instinctually, he reached for his sword, the movement engrained into every part of who he was. The Princess held him tightly as she peered around his shoulder into the room, and even Fynn held his breath as his eyes swept over the cabin.
There was no one inside, no one hiding in the shadows who could hurt them. Who could slaughter Fynn for the carnage he’d unleashed on the Refuge.
Relief coiled in Fynn’s chest. “All clear.”
“What is that smell?”
Fynn blanched as he sniffed at the air. “Bounty hunters are a filthy lot. It’s exactly what you think it is.” He pulled up the collar of his tunic and covered his mouth and nose. “Hold your breath.”
“Says the Wind-Wielder.”
Fynn snorted despite the foul-smelling waste permeating from the room. “Have it your way,” he said, his voice muffled by his shirt. “But if you need help breathing, let me know. I’ve been told I’m good at mouth to mouth.”
“You really are ridiculous.”
“Something tells me you enjoy it.”
Sol dug her elbow between his ribs and glared at him. “What are we looking for?”
Fynn stepped into the cabin, a smaller room and far more cluttered than his quarters on the Refuge. He drifted to the crumbling bookshelf that lined the wall adjacent to the door, fingering over the books that lay stacked there. He traced over spines that appeared to have never been cracked. “Nothing in particular,” he told Sol. Fynn pulled out a book and blew away the dust from the cover. “Toss anything useful onto the bed. I’ll pick through it when we’re done.”
Grumbling, Sol circled the cabin.
They lapsed into shuffling silence as Fynn rifled through the Captain’s books, through the waterlogged maps scattered carelessly across the cabin floor. He was wringing one out when Sol tapped him on the shoulder. “What about this?”
Bent onto his haunches, Fynn snatched the chunk of amethyst from her. “Where’d you find this?”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “On the desk,” she said. “Being used as a paperweight.”
Fynn shook his head and turned the sparkling purple geode between his fingers. “I’m keeping it.”
Sol’s laughter drew his eyes from the stone. “I assumed.”
Rising to his feet, Fynn shoved the amethyst into his pocket. He would clean and polish it later. “Thank you,” he said. “For even thinking to grab it. Riel would have chucked it out the window and told me to swim for it if I wanted it.”
“Rocks—crystals,” Sol amended quickly. “Seem to
make you happy. I have no need to deprive you of that, especially on a day like today.”
Fynn winced. A day like today, indeed.
He could not stop himself from studying her, this girl who should be his enemy, but wasn’t. Her delicate features were drawn with a welcoming kindness that Fynn had not encountered—truly encountered—for years. Sol did not care if he liked rocks or swords or knives, if he were a guard or the Captain of a pirate ship. She did not care if he’d murdered those hunters in her name, if it were his fault that Arden lay dying below deck.
She did not look at him with judgement, only gentle compassion that someone in Sonamire had discarded.
Whoever had caused her to flee, be it the King or her Fire-Wielding brother, was a fool.
Fynn blinked out of his stupor and raked his fingers through his hair. “Thank you,” he repeated.
“You saved my life in Valestorm,” she reminded him. “And you wouldn’t let me pay you when you agreed to take me to Nedros. At the very least, I owed you something you’d enjoy.” She smiled a bit sheepishly. “And it was useless as a paperweight. I knew you’d take much better care of it.”
Fynn’s booming laughter bounced off the planked walls of the cabin. “I certainly will.”
“When we return to your ship, will you tell me why that type of stone seems to be your favorite? You have lots of it back in your cabin.”
He considered this, considered her curious expression. “I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“So if I spend hours inquiring about every stone in your collection, you’ll tell me?”
“Inquire about the stones in my collection, Sol, and I might very well ask you to marry me.”
The smile fell from Sol’s face. “Don’t say that.”
Fynn tilted his head as the Princess took several hasty, stumbling steps away from him, her arms wrapping around her middle. Her eyes darkened with fear, but Fynn did not dare let himself reach for her. No matter how badly he ached to take her hand, to fight away that fear so he never had to see it again, Fynn simply stood and stared at her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured instead. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
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