by Kyra Gregory
Caterina cocked her head to one side, asking, “Can you blame them?”
“They needn’t have done this,” she sighed. “Do they think I don’t understand what’s at stake here if I were to fail or displease the King?”
“Do you understand?” Caterina countered, raising her brows, glancing in her direction. “Because, I think, they worry that you don’t. I think they worry you’re taking this too lightly.”
Sybelle raised an eyebrow, looking to Caterina, “And do you agree with them? Do you really think that such worry is justified?”
Caterina licked her lips and turned her head away, her eyes following the movements of the archers atop the wall, “I don’t think it would hurt to remind you,” she said.
Sybelle rolled her eyes. “Well, if you think there is something I may have missed, now is the time to enlighten me,” she said.
Caterina sighed and folded her arms against her chest, turning around to face her and to stand in her path. “A lot of the families here cannot afford to stay out of business for very much longer,” she said. “They’re anxious and they won’t take kindly to these guests lingering for very much longer—it won’t be long before they try to take matters into their own hands.”
“Do you think they will revolt?” Sybelle asked with a scoff.
“I think their anger may get them into trouble,” Caterina said. “They will get into trouble, lose their lives to our own men if not the Azurians and businesses will continue spiralling into a loss.”
Sybelle nodded. “So if I fail, I can add my own people to the list of those who will want to kill me,” she remarked. She pursed her lips together, the corners turning down in a frown but nodded in acceptance, “Good to know,” she said. She paid Caterina a glance, adding, “Thanks for the pep talk.”
Sybelle stood at the gate of Lionessa, just outside the walls, waiting impatiently with arms crossed against her chest. With her men surrounding her, she gestured for them to part just enough to be in clear view of the King as he approached, keeping his usual, marginal distance from the wall and her archers at the top of them. The beach was blinded in darkness, save for a few of the torches atop the walls that lit where she stood. In front of her, the Azurians waited for their King to address her, each one with their own smug looks on their faces. “Your Majesty,” he said, bowing only slightly.
“It’s not wise to keep me waiting,” Sybelle sighed. “You would do yourself well to know that.”
Alessio raised his eyebrows at her and she glared in return. Of course, in his mind, it was she who had been late with the answer to his proposal. Still, she would not give him the satisfaction of thinking that she owed him anything at all. “What have you decided, your Majesty?”
Sybelle shifted where she stood, adjusting her footing in the sand, and licked her lips as she contemplated her words. Ewin looked at her, just a single pace behind her, and waited with baited breath, as everyone else upon the beach did. “I refuse your proposal,” she said, looking to the King just to see his eyes glaze over in anger.
“Do you know what this means, Queen Sybelle?” His jaw was taut, his voice a growl of hatred and rage.
She pursed her lips together and her eyelashes fluttered as she shut her eyes. “I know,” she said, her voice no louder than a soft whisper.
Alessio’s features contorted with a mixture of confusion and anger, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, “Don’t allow your pride to ruin everything you’ve built,” he said. “If you accept, you may have everything you’ve gained and more,” he said. “And if you don’t, my canons will bring your walls crashing down,” he said. “This will bring a death and destruction upon your kingdom that you’re incapable of fighting on your own,” he said.
She nodded, agreeing with him entirely. “I know,” she said. She clenched her right hand into a fist and lifted it above her head. Flashes of light came from the walls behind her and, then, she and her men stood and watched with growing satisfaction as, behind King Alessio and his army, numerous white lights began to shine upon the horizon in the pitch-black darkness of the sky and sea.
King Alessio and his men looked over too, wide eyed with utter disbelief as they mentally counted the number of ships that made themselves apparent beneath the rising sun. Arrows from atop the walls whizzed past them by, striking the Azurian men. Taking the opportunity, the handful of guards that Sybelle had brought with her withdrew their swords, charging on King Alessio’s guards and slaying many of them while Ewin and another captured their King. With a knife pressed firmly against King Alessio’s throat, brought to his knees, the remaining guards dropped their weapons at his instruction.
“Pirates,” King Alessio whispered with furrowed brows, watching as the magnificent black flags on the ships became clear in the light of day.
“You said I couldn’t do it alone,” Sybelle said, standing beside him, “and you were right. Thus, I was not against seeking support from those that have as much hate towards you as I do.”
“My mother won’t let my death go unavenged,” Alessio said, gritting his teeth together as his nostrils flared.
Sybelle licked her lips, stifling a smile as she hummed in agreement. “And it’s because of this obsessive love she has for you that I can guarantee that that won’t happen,” she said. Alessio knew nothing of what she’d meant but he would find out, soon enough, when the longboats filled with pirates would begin making their way towards them.
CHAPTER 17
WITH MERELY A few steps to the beach, the bottom of the boats touching sand, Gyles and his most recent acquaintances jumped out of the boats and stomped onto the land, splashing salt water about them.
Sybelle smiled just as a tall man, built like the tower of a fortress, dragged Queen Merra along the sand. She looked like nothing she’d even imagined. Dark circles plagued the thin, ageing skin beneath her eyes and her thin lips were twisted into a frown, a small trail of blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. The pirate threw her to the ground at the feet of her son and she struggled to get back up, her hands bound so rigidly behind her back that there was no regaining her own balance.
Gyles approached Sybelle, placing a hand on the small of her back and a kiss on her cheek. A handful of pirates stepped forward with a simple flick of his hand and the tall man who had laid Queen Merra at her feet looked at each of his men before looking to her, his head held high in a show of pride and confidence but hardly what she would call arrogance. He was tall and well-built, casting an imposing shadow on the prisoners at his feet. Though his hair was dark and long, tucked behind his ears, his beard was nothing more than dark blonde stubble, only seen with the rays of sun hit it. With high cheekbones, a sharp jawline and brown eyes, darkened with intensity, she could say he had all the right looks for a man in the respectable position of Captain. “This is Kieren,” Gyles introduced. “He and his men have been most accommodating to our desires,” he said.
Sybelle put on her best smile. On the inside, she became jittery and impatient, her heart racing in her chest. “A deed that won’t go unnoticed,” she said.
A few feet away, one of the Azurian soldiers spat at the feet of one of the pirates, jerking hard against him and shoving him off balance. And, before Sybelle could so much as open her mouth to say anything, the pirate withdrew his sword and pierced his throat. Kieren groaned with some disapproval, slapping the man near him in the arm, forcing him up to the pirate who had caused such a scene with his retaliation.
It was only then that Sybelle took a good look at Kieren’s second-in-command, a man of an average build, well-groomed and not nearly as beast-like as his Captain. It was there, the manner in which he leaned in and spoke to him that had Sybelle looking more closely at the exchange, realising that the ‘he’ who had retaliated against the Azurian prisoner was, in fact, a ‘she’.
“What do you want us to do with them?” Kieren asked, jerking his chin in the direction of the Azurian nobles.
Sybelle needn’t think abo
ut it, blinking away her confusion at the female pirate as she was led away by the second-in-command before he returned to his Captain’s side. “Execute them,” she said, ignoring Queen Merra’s quiet sobs, “but don’t ruin the bodies too much; they may be of use.”
Kieren smirked and, without a chance for a moment of protest, he forced his sword through King Alessio’s heart. Queen Merra’s gasp of shock as her son’s body fell into the sand lasted for just a second, for a moment later the pirate at Kieren’s side slashed her throat as he loomed over her from behind, cutting through her with ease but, strangely, with not an ounce of contempt on his features.
Their execution was quick and without fuss, almost anticlimactic after weeks of having them lingering on her shores like a deadly plague. She wouldn’t have it any other away, however, wishing to see this over with.
Sybelle turned to Ewin, patting him firmly on the arm, “Go and find Deros,” she said. He was off in a heartbeat, taking two of their men with him.
As the dead bodies were rolled aside, Kieren approached her.
“We were told that we would be rewarded for our services,” he recalled to her.
Sybelle nodded, though her mind was elsewhere, “The Azurian ships in my port are yours to keep, so long as I never find them to be a nuisance to me again,” she said. “And you may keep all that they may contain also, though I doubt there is much more than a few days worth of food and weapons.”
A guard, having parted with Ewin, made his way back through the maze of tents, interrupting the Pirate Captain’s response. “Your Majesty,” he called, gaining her immediate attention, “we have found him.”
She looked back to Kieren, “I’m interested in discussing a proposal with you, however,” she added before following the guards as they seemed to gravitate towards Ewin.
She’d only just forced her way through the crowd when Ewin was cutting Deros down from a wooden post. Gyles, having slipped out of his jacket, slid an arm beneath his, tightening his embrace around him as Deros’s trembles turned into violent jerks upon being touched. “It’s all right,” Gyles whispered, bringing him down gently into the ground, “I have you,” he said.
Sybelle threw herself onto her knees at his side and Gyles laid his jacket over him, rubbing the material with a light touch to get some warmth into him. She reached out and cupped his face in her hands. He was dreadfully cold to the touch, filling her with fright. Ewin came near with a cup of water in hand and Gyles patted him lightly on the cheek, trying to get him conscious long enough to drink. Deros refused, even when clinging to life by just a thread, his face contorted in agony as he wheezed with each breath. Sybelle nudged him, “You must drink,” she said, forcing the cup to his lips again. He took no more than a sip before he stopped. His eyelids fell shut entirely and, were it not for the tremors of his body, she would’ve assumed the worst. She looked to Ewin but he needn’t be told. A soldier broke the pallet from the nearest bed, bringing it onto the ground beside Deros. Together, they slid him onto it, both cringing and murmuring apologies when he groaned in agony at the movement. Sybelle got back up, feeling her legs shaking beneath her, and grabbed fistfuls of her dress to keep her hands from trembling as she watched him get carried away, returning to the manor where he could be tended to.
She inhaled deeply enough to still her nerves, returning to the Pirate Captain who, upon her arrival, looked at her with greater intrigue than when she’d left. He cleared his throat, glancing around, “You said you had a proposal for us,” he said.
Sybelle nodded. “Yes,” she agreed, “but not now,” she said with a shaking voice.
Kieren cocked an eyebrow at her, tilting his head to one side, “And why not?”
She hadn’t wished to show her weakness; not to her people, not to her men, not to the King and Queen of Azura, even in their final moments, and she most certainly never wished to show it to these strangers. But the moment she saw Deros again, the moment she allowed herself to feel for him, her weakness was put out into the open and there was no concealing it. She exhaled heavily; she’d come to so despise being questioned. “I would like time to speak with my acquaintance; what he has to tell me about his time in your presence may greatly influence my proposal, for the better or for the worst.”
With that, the Captain seemed to withdraw somewhat, giving into her with only a minor wound to his pride. Unwilling to let him feel as though he was completely beneath her, hoping to respect the alliance of sorts, Sybelle lingered, licking her lips as she thought. “You may spend the night here, dining on whatever the Azurians have left behind. You need only ask if you require anything else; I’ll instruct my people to treat you well in our time apart.”
She needn’t wait for anything beyond a simple nod of understanding before she returned to her place behind the Lionessan wall. Word of the execution of the Azurian King and Queen already seemed to be going around. There was an excited buzz of conversation and movement amongst the people. She wanted nothing more than to share in their thrill and relief but her heart and mind were elsewhere as she stormed in the direction of the castle with men at either side of her. Suddenly, her hand was clasped within a vice-like grip that grounded her. She looked at their entwined fingers and followed the arm up to see Gyles’s smiling face. Though his gaze seemed broken with sadness, and she couldn’t tell what it was that had troubled him so, he looked almost relieved.
Sybelle laughed, even when she felt as though she was far from capable of it, “Don’t tell me that you had doubts,” she said.
He scoffed and shook his head in disbelief, “Don’t tell me that you didn’t,” he retorted.
She waved her her hand dismissively, turning her eyes to the castle doors as they made their way inside, away from prying eyes. “I had faith in our plan,” she said.
“Our plan?” he asked, surprised. “I hardly recall being involved in its creation,” he said.
“And, yet, I couldn’t have done it without you,” she said, adjusting her hand to wrap around his, squeezing it in appreciation.
“I’ve no doubt in my mind that you could have,” he said.
Sybelle turned to him. She sighed and dropped her shoulders, allowing the same relief that filled Gyles to wash over her. “I’m not foolish enough to believe that King Alessio did not have more planned for us,” she said. “I take it you’re responsible for reinforcements never making themselves available to him.”
He nodded curtly, “Queen Merra was not far from Lionessa when we attacked,” he said. “However, additional reinforcements were on their way here in a fleet of six ships. We took hold of Queen Merra’s ship and fired at them from there, as well as from those of the pirates. The fact that we had their Queen meant they couldn’t fire on her ship. It took time and most of the resources that the pirates had but we were successful.”
Sybelle nodded, unease at the thought of what would’ve happened if Gyles had failed. “Six ships,” she said. “We had men on these walls armed to the teeth, a handful of men housed here, an army of hundreds to be dispatched immediately should the need have arisen, but I don’t think we could have been successful.”
“And that is precisely why we had them dealt with before they could get here,” he said with a smirk on his lips and a comforting touch on her arm. “You should be proud of yourself,” he said. “With an Azurian army on your doorstep for as long as all this, I expected to find Lionessa in a much worse state.”
She cocked her head to the side, agreeing with his thoughts. “It’s because you’ve been timely,” she said. “Another day, another two days, another three days and I was sure that the people would start to turn on me for allowing King Alessio to sit on our sands for as long as I did. I was beginning to run out of options; I thought I was going to have have men storm the beach and hope for the best. It wouldn’t have stopped the threat of the Azurians since Queen Merra surely would’ve come after me, but at least it would’ve put off an uprising within our walls.”
Gyles placed the tips o
f his fingers against her lips and rolled his eyes, taking her by surprise. He withdrew his hand, smirking, “All you’ve done since my arrival is fret about problems that won’t resurface,” he said.
A pout was quick on Sybelle’s lips. “I haven’t been able to speak of this to anybody,” she confessed in a whisper. “My mind has been flooded with these thoughts from the very beginning, dizzying me ever still, and I haven’t been able to tell anybody of it.” He nodded curtly, showing her an understanding smirk. He was right, however. These problems were in the past. She turned to him completely, giving him her undivided attention as she clasped both his hands in hers. “How were you treated?” she asked, changing the subject, certain that arguing would be fruitless.
“Not poorly in the slightest,” Gyles quipped with raised brows, as surprised by it as she was. “Perhaps it was them, perhaps it was me, or, perhaps, it was the mutual enemy that caused them to be so agreeable,” he said.
She squeezed his hands all the more tightly in her own. Her mind was racing and her heart did the same within her chest. “All that matters to me now is that you’re safe,” she whispered. Knowing that a chair was nearby, she slunk down into it. Gyles got to his knees beside her, brushing her hair out of her face. Her eyes were glistening as she took in every detail of his young face, “I carried guilt for putting you in such a position from the start,” she said. She exhaled, closing her eyes as she hung her head, “When Deros left, when he was gone and I feared him dead, the guilt of having put you into such a position grew to the point that I didn’t think I could carry it any longer.”
Gyles bowed his head, stifling a smile. “I told you, Sybelle,” he whispered, caressing the back of her hand with his thumbs, “that I would not have been troubled, even if I died in your service.”