Sins of the Sea

by Laila Winters

  “It is worse,” Fynn repeated, and she was not prepared as he continued, “He’s my brother.”

  She could not breathe, was not certain she wanted to.

  The Dragon’s Heart lying between them was suddenly far less threatening than the Captain sitting in front of her.

  He’s my brother.

  “You’re—You’re a Grayclaw?” she gasped. “But how? You—”

  “Stop,” Fynn begged, his eyes shining in the corners. Those were tears gathering along his lashes, tears that Sol had not thought him capable of crying. He clutched her fingers until her bones ached. “Don’t demand answers from me and then not let me explain. Please. Just listen.”

  But she couldn’t listen, could not hear beyond her heart pounding in her ears. Her Magic, even without the Dragon’s Heart, was a raging torrent beneath her skin.

  Fynn, the Captain who had saved her, who offered his ship as a home to those in need, who had shown her nothing but kindness since the moment they’d met in Valestorm, was a Grayclaw.

  “How?”

  He did not need clarification. “Caidem is my father,” he told her, confirming what she’d pieced together on her own. “But my mother, she was a priestess in his personal temple. It was a brief affair, but I was the product of it. And when the Queen discovered that Caidem had been unfaithful, she ordered that he have my mother killed. He obeyed. I was five.

  “You asked me before why I use the name Ezra for business affairs, and I told you that it was just an alias. That was a lie. Ezra is the name my mother gave me. But Caidem didn’t like it, said it was too Jadoan for a son of Dyn. He changed my name to Fynnian after I was brought into his care. It was the name he’d wanted to give my sister if she’d been a boy.”

  Sol’s insides were conflicted, part of her aching for this man she’d grown so fond of, and part of her disbelieving of such a tale. “Cardinal?”

  “Cardinal was Vasil’s last name, and Riel’s. Neither of them minded that I use it.”

  “Hale?” Sol inquired. “You gave the name Ezra Hale in Arrowbrook.”

  “Hale was my mother’s family name.”

  Sol pulled her knees into her chest. “The war,” she said. “Tell me about the war.”

  Fynn blanched. “Sol—”

  “You were the one who nearly killed my brother,” she accused. “You said you saw him on the battlefield, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? You didn’t just see him, you fought him.”

  Fynn nodded nervously. “He was meant to fight Thane, but your brother was a formidable foe, even as a child. Caidem was too afraid to send Thane off to fight him, was too afraid that Silas would kill his only legitimate heir, so he sent his bastard to do the job.

  “I could have killed Silas, had I wanted to. I had the training, and I had my Magic. I smothered his flames every time he struck at me. But then I ran him through with my sword, and I—” Fynn drew a ragged breath, as if he himself had been stabbed clean-through with a blade. “Silas fell, and his flames went out, and I could have done it. I was poised to deal him his killing blow, poised to finally win Caidem’s favor.”

  Sol blinked away the tears from her eyes. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because he was a child,” Fynn said. “I was a child. And we were fighting a war that wasn’t ours to fight, and killing him didn’t seem fair.”

  “Silas told me that the boy who wounded him ran away.” Sol did not realize she’d dug her nails into the top of Fynn’s hand until he gently shook his own free. He flexed his fingers and winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Fynn said, then continued, “I couldn’t kill your brother, but I knew that mine would kill me for having failed him. I ran to avoid a shameful death.”

  Sol picked at her cuticles. “Where did you go?”

  “South,” he said. “I ran until I couldn’t anymore. Until there was no more blood and the shore was gone. Vasil found me in Valestorm a few weeks after the final battle between Sonamire and Dyn. I didn’t know where I was, or where I was going, but I was half dead and starving when Vasil offered me a home on his ship.”

  Fynn nudged Sol’s hands apart before she could rip the skin from her nailbeds.

  “Amael said that your father told everyone you were dead.”

  The Captain scoffed. “I’m sure he wishes I was,” he said. “But both he and Thane know that I survived that battle. They know I’m out here, somewhere, and I’m sure I cross their minds every once in a while. I’m sure Thane misses his personal punching bag.”

  Her temper flared, the kind of rage that when someone provoked Silas into such a fury, armies knew well to run. But perhaps that had always been the Dragon’s Heart. “All those stories,” Sol recalled. “All those stories you told me about your brother having beaten you as a child…”

  Fynn nodded. “He liked an audience,” he confided quietly. “Sometimes, when he was bored, he’d beat me in the palace’s central courtyard. Half the town would stand there and watch from between the pillars.”

  “And Caidem let him do this?”

  “Caidem encouraged it.”

  The ship rocked beneath them, and Fynn arrowed forward as if launched by an invisible bowstring. He held Sol’s hands between them. “Calm down,” he urged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “For you,” Sol snapped. “It’s new to me.”

  He brushed his thumb along her knuckles, traced circles—no, runes—against her skin. “I know,” he acknowledged. “But I’m not there anymore, and there’s nothing you can do—nothing I need you to do—to protect me.”

  “I could sink the palace,” Sol thundered anyway. “I could flood the entire kingdom.”

  And she could. With or without the Dragon’s Heart, Sol Rosebone could drown them on dry land.

  But Fynn shook his head. “I don’t want that,” he told her evenly. “Caidem and Thane are the tyrants, not the people. Not my sister. Theodosia was never like the rest of them.”

  Warm air filled her lungs, soft and soothing and calm. Sol breathed in deep until the Magic stilled beneath her skin, until her water trickled back into the Emerald. She gripped Fynn’s hands and pulled him close, close until she could wrap her arms around his torso and embrace him just as tight. Fynn sank into Sol’s chest and buried his face into her hair.

  “I don’t hate you,” she said. “Never you.”

  He chuckled, the sound reverberating through Sol’s bones. “Just my family.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re any fonder of mine.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose I am.”

  Sol did not move, did not dare let him go as she asked, “What now?”

  Fynn raked through her hair, fiddling absently with the curls at the nape of her neck. “What do you mean?”

  “They’re going to war because of me,” Sol said. “Our brothers.”

  She felt him flinch. “It isn’t because of you,” Fynn said. “It’s because Sonamire and Dyn have always been at odds, and there’s not been a monarch yet to break the cycle.”

  “Silas would break it,” Sol considered. “Perhaps he’s skilled with a sword, but he doesn’t like war. He doesn’t like fighting.”

  “Unfortunately, Thane doesn’t share that same sentiment.” Fynn pressed a lingering kiss to Sol’s temple as he pulled away from her. “But Silas is strong. If Sonamire and Dyn are indeed at war, I have no doubt he’ll be fine.” His smile, though strained, was smug. “He couldn’t have defeated me, of course, but Thane is shit with a weapon. He relied on his Magic to win a fight.”

  Sol frowned. “He’s a Wielder?”

  “Earth, like Riel.”

  She hummed her acknowledgement. “It’s a shame,” she said. “That Thane will someday be King.”

  Fynn snorted, twisting onto his side and flopping against the mattress, mindful of Draven lounging at the foot of the bed. He tucked his arms beneath his head. “Don’t go there,” he warned. “Riel’s already pondered what it would be like if I were to challenge
Thane for the throne.”

  Of course, the Quartermaster knew. Sol doubted there was anything he did not share with Riel.

  The Princess quirked her head. “Why don’t you?”

  “I have no desire to rule. Besides,” Fynn closed his eyes. “I’d be bad at it.”

  Sol swept the Dragon’s Heart into her fist. It thrummed with life between her fingers, her Magic surging in sudden answer to a silent, ancient demand. She tucked the scale into her pocket, lying next to Fynn and nuzzling her head into the space between his neck and shoulder. “I don’t think so,” she disagreed. “Perhaps not a practical King, and not always a serious one, but a fair one. You and Silas would be a force to be reckoned with if you worked together.”

  Fynn turned onto his side and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Not going to happen, Princess. You gave up your chance to be a Queen when you snuck away to Valestorm and met me.”

  Sol rolled her eyes and placed her hand against the center of Fynn’s chest. She smiled at the heart that lie beneath. One not of Grayclaw lineage, but a heart honed by the family he’d built for himself. Its beat was fierce against her palm. “What now?”

  The Captain thought for a moment, tapping against Sol’s hip as he slung his arm over her waist. “Now, we go to Nedros,” he decided. “We stock up on supplies, and then we go wherever the wind takes us.”

  A breeze tousled Sol’s hair.

  “Just not to the Irican continent.”

  Fynn nodded, toying with Sol’s curls. “Just not to the Irican continent.”

  A yawn escaped her, one that tugged at her bones. “I’m tired,” she said. “How far are we from the port?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. Someone saved my ship and fainted, and I haven’t left my cabin since I brought her here.”

  “She doesn’t remember saving your ship,” Sol grumbled. “But she does remember discovering that not only does she carry that blasted Dragon’s Heart, but her Captain is the brother of her betrothed. Her mind is as jumbled as broken puzzle pieces, and she’d like to sleep it off.”

  Fynn’s laughter was a brush of air against her cheek. “Stop talking in the third person and rest,” he said. “I’ll wake you when we reach Nedros.”

  She curled into his chest, her fingers twisting into the dark blue fabric of his tunic. “For what it’s worth,” Sol said through another yawn. “I said nothing about being your Queen.”

  The Captain grunted. “You didn’t have to,” he replied. “And there’s no one else I’d offer the job.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  FYNN

  “What’s the port like?” Sol inquired, bouncing on the heels of her feet as she gripped the helm with both hands. Fynn hovered close, prepared to wrangle the wheel from her should the Princess steer them straight into the harbor. “Is it like Valestorm? Arrowbrook? Can I come with you into the port? I haven’t been on land in weeks.”

  The Captain grinned, reaching for one of the wooden spokes of the wheel. He lightly corrected Sol’s course into the quay. “So many questions, Princess.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said offhandedly. “What’s it like?”

  Fynn stepped over Draven, the direwolf lounging at his charge’s feet, and wrapped his arms around Sol’s waist. “A bit like Arrowbrook,” he told her. “More to your right. And a bit like Valestorm.”

  Sol turned the helm. “Can I come with you into the market?”

  She’d been asking him all morning, since they’d first spotted the bustling port along Nedros’ never-ending shoreline. Fynn was hesitant to let her go given what had happened in Arrowbrook, to let her off this ship at all when Nedros had been her intended destination. But the Princess had asked him to stay, and he’d agreed, and she had conned Riel into dying her hair for her last night. She’d complained as she covered the Princess’ red roots with a chestnut brown that Fynn thought suited her beautifully.

  “Of course you can,” he decided. “But you have to stay close to me. Do you have—”

  “No.” Sol pressed her fingers to her chest, feeling for the necklace that was not there. “I haven’t worn it since the storm. I don’t want that kind of power, Fynn. Not when I don’t need it.”

  Fynn sighed through his nose. He never thought he’d see the day where the Dragon’s Heart was within his reach, and within the hands of his brother’s betrothed no less. Such a terrible day it had been, the day Fynn had told her who he was, who his family was, and he had seen such disgust on the Princess of Sonamire’s face. Not for him, of course, but for the family he’d left behind all those years ago.

  If he could even call them that.

  But he would do it all again. He would fight in the war and run from his homeland if it meant meeting Vasil and this crew. If it would lead him into the arms of Sol Rosebone, granting him just a smidge of satisfaction in knowing he’d stolen Thane’s bride.

  “That thing won’t respond to me now, anyway,” Sol reminded him. And indeed, the Heart would not. She’d tried, had gripped it in a trembling fist last night, but all the scale had granted her was a splash of water. “Not consciously. It’s like now that I know I have it, it’s gone dormant. I left it on your fancy rock table. No one will ever know the difference between that scale and all the others you’ve collected.”

  “It can’t protect you from the table,” Fynn chastised. “Head for the empty dock on the end.” They’d discuss this again later when she was not steering his ship.

  Sol’s confidence waned as they approached the harbor, her feet shuffling nervously beneath her. “Can you slow us down? I don’t want to hit the walkway.”

  Taking a breath, Fynn’s eyes fluttered as he exhaled. A gentle wind pushed against the sails, slowing their speed and fighting the ship back against the current. “Slow and steady,” he murmured, one hand resting gently on Sol’s hip, the other inching for the helm. “Angle us into the dock, and we’ll sidle right up beside it. Amael will drop the anchor before we hit anything.”

  Sol scoffed. “Or he’ll run right into it and spend the next two months mocking me.”

  “True,” Fynn chuckled. “But I happen to like my ship all in one piece. Besides, you break it, you buy it, and I’m not paying to replace half the dock because my boatswain felt like being an asshole.”

  He said it loud enough that Amael heard him from the prow. With the anchor thrown over his shoulder, his muscles straining against its weight, Amael offered the Captain a display of his middle finger. “Wasn’t a thought in my mind until now.”

  Fynn felt the hitch in Sol’s breathing as they approached Nedros, her hands gripping the helm until her knuckles were bone-white. She turned the wheel, and the ship coasted into the harbor at an angle. “Good,” Fynn praised. “A little more to your left.”

  The Princess swallowed. “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes you can,” Fynn promised. He reached for the bottom of the wheel, but he did not turn it, did not wrangle the helm from Sol’s hands. “I’m right here. I won’t let you crash into the pier.”

  A ship sailed near the Refuge, spearing for the open dock next to the one that Sol was aiming for. Fynn swore, and Sol stepped back into his chest. “Maybe not the port, but if that ship doesn’t get out of my way—”

  Fynn reached around her and grabbed the helm, whipping the wheel around and jarring the Refuge into a sharp tilt towards the harbor. The prow narrowly missed the stern of the other ship, and Fynn cursed beneath his breath. Several Wind-Wielders laughed at him from the deck. “Bastards.”

  Sol gripped his arm to right herself. “Can I sink them?”

  “I wish,” Fynn muttered. “But I’m not in the mood to pick a fight today.”

  “They started it,” Sol pointed out. She glared at the ship in question as Fynn steered them into the empty dock. Amael tossed the anchor overboard, and Sol rocked into Fynn’s side as the ship jolted to a stop.

  “Forget about them,” Fynn said. He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “We’ve got a port to explore and suppli
es to buy. Where’d you put that list?”

  Sol patted her pockets and frowned. “I think I left it in the cabin.”

  “Of course you did, just like something else that’s important.” Fynn poked her in the chest, then lightly tapped his temple. “Fortunately for the both of us, my memory is far better than yours. Come on. And leave the animals on the ship. Draven would turn some heads, but Indyr would have the entire country offering us the ship’s weight in gold, and I can’t be certain I’d say no.”

  Both he and Sol peered over the banister to find Gracia playing with Indyr, the creature having doubled in size since Sol had rescued him from Dryu. He romped about the deck like a dog, chasing after an old apple that Gracia rolled across the planks. Fynn shook his head at the tongue that lolled from his open mouth.

  Sol winced. “We’ll leave him here,” she agreed. “Gracia won’t mind looking after him.”

  Fynn sketched her a playful bow and motioned to the stairwell. “After you, milady.”

  Sol elbowed him between the ribs. “Stop that,” she said. “That’s far more likely to turn heads than either of the creatures on this ship.”

  Grinning, Fynn followed her down the steps, Draven on their heels as they emerged onto the main deck of the Refuge. Riel immediately strode towards Fynn, fierce determination etched into the crevices of her face. He braced himself.

  “I’m going into the port,” she declared. “I haven’t stepped foot on dry land in two months, and my Magic needs some sort of release before it kills me. Tending to the garden isn’t enough anymore.”

  Fynn raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking for my permission?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m telling you. I am getting off this ship for at least an hour, and you can kiss my ass if you think otherwise.”

  The Captain laughed as he slung an arm over Sol’s shoulders. “I’ll leave the ass kissing to Gracia. Handle your business and take as long as you need. We’re not in any rush.”

  Sol looked up at Fynn and smiled, her hazel eyes shining the color of the sea. “Why don’t we stay the night?” she suggested. “If we’re not in any rush, what could it hurt?”