Crystal Caged (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles Book 5)

by Elise Kova

  “I told her when we last spoke that business here would keep me from giving updates to her regularly. I’m sure it’ll take about fifty years of silence before she starts to wonder.”

  “Makes sense,” Vi muttered, her lids becoming heavy.

  It didn’t even occur to her that she had just found the idea of someone checking in once every fifty years reasonable. Fifty years would’ve been half of her lifespan once. Now, it was little more than a moment.

  With every day that passed, she drew closer to the end of the world and further from the world she’d known… and the woman she’d been.

  Vi woke up before her friend and lover.

  Taavin’s breathing was slow and easy. The sunlight from underneath the crack of the door was already bright enough to see by. Vi twisted in Taavin’s arms. He sighed softly in his sleep and tightened his embrace slightly.

  She ran her fingertips from the point of his ear down his cheek. His eyes fluttered open at the touch.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Vi whispered, soft enough that Deneya wouldn’t hear.

  “Waking next to you is nothing to be sorry about.” He blinked the morning’s haze from his eyes. “How did you sleep?”

  “Wonderfully.”

  He must’ve seen something on her face. “Is everything all right?”

  “I hope so,” Vi started cautiously.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m going alone this morning.”

  His brow furrowed. “All three of us are going—” She silenced him with a finger across his lips.

  “Listen… I don’t know what ‘wringer’ Luke will put us through to see if we can keep up with his crew. But even if somehow you two can hide your ears for the test… you’ll never be able to conceal them long-term on the vessel. All it will take is one gust of sea breeze to take off your caps or bandannas, and then everyone will see them.”

  “We can illusion them.”

  “Those same sea breezes will make your hair wild. You won’t be able to predict its movements with an illusion.”

  “We’ll illusion the whole head of hair, then,” he countered.

  “And you don’t think that would ever look suspicious?”

  “Dark Isle dwellers don’t understand what our ears mean. We could say it’s a birth deformity.”

  “One you both share?” Vi arched her eyebrows.

  “We’ll say we’re siblings.”

  “Even though you look nothing alike?” Vi barely refrained from rolling her eyes.

  “We both have black hair.”

  “I have black hair, Taavin. You have bottles of ink.”

  “There are bottles of ink in Norin as well. We can keep up the deception,” he insisted.

  “I need you both here.” Tired of arguing, she got to the heart of the matter. “You need to keep exploring the tunnels and caves to look for the treasure. This way, we can divide our efforts: I’ll go and ensure Adela doesn’t have the crown while you two remain here to look.”

  “You have no guarantee they’re working with Adela.”

  “And you have no guarantee they aren’t.” Just when she was on the verge of exasperation, he cracked a grin and pulled her closer. There wasn’t a bit of space between them and she was left breathless as Taavin leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

  “I understand, and I know.” He sighed. “I’m not going to fight you further.”

  “Really?” Vi asked skeptically.

  “If I tried, I think I would lose.”

  “You would, because I’m right about this.”

  “And I know it.” Taavin kissed her lightly once more. No matter how much time passed, the act still sent sparks up her arms that were their own, unique type of magic. He pulled away and murmured, “I still don’t want to let you go.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I don’t want to leave your side. But whenever I’m docked here, I’ll be with you.”

  “And the weeks or months when you’re sailing to and from Norin?”

  “I’ll yearn for you—for where I am home.” Were she able, she’d hide from the world and spend forever in his arms. Taavin’s embrace was one of the few places she still felt fully herself. She was Vi, here, nothing more or less. “Hopefully, I can gain some kind of lead on Adela early and I’ll return to you quickly.”

  “Or maybe we’ll find something and call you home.”

  Vi nodded and heard Deneya begin to stir. Before the woman was up and about, Vi leaned in for one more kiss—for one last, longing second when they were entwined. Then she pulled away.

  There was work to do.

  Deneya was understandably frustrated by the notion of not getting to go on the ship and prove her prowess. But she ultimately agreed with Vi that it would be for the best.

  Then, with just a pack to her name once more, Vi emerged into the early morning.

  She made her way through the narrow streets and alleyways of the compact city down to the docks. Vi instantly knew which ship was the Lady Black. It bore Twintle’s family crest on an oversized sail.

  “And what’ll you be wanting?” A gruff sailor sitting at the end of the gangplank stopped her as she approached.

  “I’m here to see Lord Twintle,” Vi said in Mhashanese, hoping to earn some favors with the man.

  “You really think the Lord sleeps on a ship when he has the comforts of port?” So much for winning him over.

  “Then I’d like to speak with the man named Cole.”

  “That’s cap, captain, or Captain Dower to you,” the sailor corrected.

  “May I please see Captain Dower?”

  The sailor stared her down for several long seconds, spit something he’d been chewing into the strip of water between the boat and the dock, and finally pushed away from the pylon he’d been leaning on. “All right, green gills, come along. You’d best hope it’s something good to be troubling the captain this early.”

  Vi followed him onto the main deck of a narrow ship. She was instantly reminded of the Dawn Skipper. The Lady Black was a little larger, designed to carry more cargo, but both vessels had clearly been designed with speed in mind.

  “You wait here,” the sailor ordered, disappearing into the captain’s quarters at the stern for a minute before reemerging with the man Vi recognized from the night before as Cole—Captain Cole Dower, she now gathered. “This is the one looking for you, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Cole dismissed the man and looked Vi up and down. “You had two others with you last night.”

  “They decided the high seas are a bit too intimidating for them.”

  “So the scrawniest came instead.” Cole shook his head and turned away. “Go home, girl.”

  “No.” Vi stood firm. But the man didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder. When he continued toward his cabin, Vi had no choice but to scamper after him. “I said I would not leave.”

  “Well, there’s no room for you here.” Cole opened the door and disappeared into his cabin, leaving Vi standing on deck, a bit dazed.

  This was a test. Her trial period had begun and they were going to see how determined she really was.

  Vi did a quick scan of the deck and then started toward a man who was pulling out a bucket and mop. The ship was fairly quiet in port. But that didn’t mean there weren’t chores that needed doing.

  “Give me those.”

  “Who are you?” the man asked, but he was already handing her the mop.

  “Your new crew mate,” Vi declared, hoping she’d be right by the end of the day. “When I’m done with this, what can I do next?”

  The man gave her a long list. After she finished swabbing the deck, Vi coiled rope and sanded a portion of the wall underneath one of the windows in the crew’s quarters. She worked without question or comment other than, “What’s next?” or “What else can I do?” until the sun hung low in the sky. The narrow opening to the cargo hold kept catching her eye, but Vi ignored it, for now.

  If there was one thing she’d lea
rned, it was how to be patient.

  “I thought I told you to go home.”

  “I’m almost done with this for the day,” Vi replied, not even looking back to confirm what she already knew from the voice alone: Captain Dower had come to check in on her.

  “I have no pay or berth for you. Go home.”

  “I don’t have a home, sir,” Vi said. The feeling of Taavin’s arms, closing tightly around her, filled her mind. He was the only home she had.

  “Is that supposed to illicit sympathy from me?”

  “No,” Vi answered, dipping her brush into the heavy paint and caking it onto the wall she’d spent the better part of the afternoon sanding down. “I’m merely stating facts.”

  “Then my facts remain as well: I have no room for you. Now, off my boat,” he growled.

  Vi calmly finished the section she was working on, returned the brush to the bucket, went to where she’d originally collected the paint from, closed the bucket, and dropped the brush in a soaking basin. When she emerged on deck with Cole, she noticed more than a few eyes on her. A group of sailors who were drinking on the quarterdeck went silent. Vi strode down the gangplank and settled herself on the pylon opposite the guard.

  “Get going, girl,” Dower called down.

  Vi wondered briefly how old Dower was. Thirty? Forty, perhaps? They might be nearly the same age, and here he was, calling her “girl.”

  “You told me to get off your boat, sir. I am off of it. You said nothing about the docks and don’t control them.”

  “Suit yourself,” he grumbled and disappeared.

  That night, Vi slept on the docks in a twilight haze. She was ever aware of the heavy footfalls along the creaking wood, always listening for a threat. When dawn came, she unfolded her cold, damp body and ascended the gangplank to begin her work once more.

  Once more, Captain Dower told her he had no room and no pay for her.

  Once more, Vi slept on the docks.

  It took a week.

  Twintle suddenly appeared on the boat without warning, looking quite smug. He didn’t so much as spare her a glance as he went right for Dower. Vi hoped that Taavin and Deneya had been keeping an eye on the man while he was in town.

  The call to cast off was made soon after.

  Dower said nothing about having no space for her as they readied to set sail.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The passage from Oparium to Norin took about four weeks, round trip, depending on weather. They usually stayed in Oparium for two weeks when docked, and in Norin for a month or two.

  In total, the trip to and from Oparium usually took about two and a half months.

  Vi had done that trip four and a half times when things finally got interesting. They were docked in Norin when a woman with a scar over her left eye boarded late in the night. Vi had seen the woman on the docks when she was off the boat with the other sailors in search of a drink or card game. But she’d never had much of a reason to pay attention to her. That was… until now.

  “I’m here to speak with Cole.”

  “Not often a Southerner comes knocking in Norin.” Vi folded her arms over her chest. She’d worked her way up through the ranks swiftly and deliberately, to be one of Cole’s agents. He trusted her to not let just anyone onboard the ship.

  “Twintle sent me.” The woman tucked her hand into her coat and produced a folded letter sealed with the same symbol emblazoned on the sail.

  “Well, then, don’t keep the captain waiting with your lordly business.” Vi pushed away from the dock pylon and led the woman up the gangplank.

  A Southerner… what would have Twintle working with a Southerner? Whatever it was, Vi was certain it wasn’t good. But perhaps, hopefully, this marked the start of a lead that would bring her to Adela.

  Whatever the woman and Cole spoke about was short. She was strolling back down the gangplank with the same smug smile in only ten minutes. Vi worried the chain around her neck and wished, not for the first time in Norin, that she could still summon Taavin.

  A few hours later, when the decks had long since quieted, a red-cloaked figure emerged from the night’s haze. Vi shifted off her perch, instantly alert.

  “Fiarum evantes,” Luke said, just as he had all those months ago.

  “Kotun in nox,” Vi replied, eying the red cape around his shoulders. Did the Knights of Jadar still meet in that warehouse? She’d cased it a few times without success, but perhaps she should do so again.

  He started up the gangplank, but stopped only a few steps up and faced her once more. “You were that girl we liberated from the South. What was your name?”

  “Violet,” Vi said.

  “That’s right. You were the one who knew of my family.” Luke paused, hands folded behind his back. He looked more and more like his father as his hair began to salt. “How did you put it? That my kin, ‘protected the old ways’?”

  “It’s what I was always taught growing up here in Norin. And it’s made working for you an honor, sir.”

  “Is that so?” He stepped forward, looking her up and down in the dim light of the docks. “How old are you, Violet?”

  “Twenty, sir.” She looked like she could be twenty, right? The longer Vi was alive, the harder it was to feel any age.

  “You were a toddler when this city fell, then.”

  “But I grew up with the stories. They were vivid enough that, even as a girl, I felt like I had been in those battles.”

  “You remind me of a woman I knew, then,” he said, his voice going soft with memory. Vi smiled innocently. He’d said as much in Oparium.

  “Who?” Let’s see if you can remember this time.

  “I can’t recall.” Twintle shook his head. Couldn’t? Or didn’t want to? Vi didn’t ask. “But more importantly, I have a proposition for you.”

  “Oh?” This was the most Twintle had spoken to her in the past year. They’d otherwise had only brief, polite interactions.

  “I’m going to expand the business ventures of this vessel. We’ll need an adaptable crew. One that is loyal above all else. Dower only has good things to say about you and your work ethic. I’ve never seen you fraternizing with the wrong crowd.”

  “I’m flattered you’ve taken such an interest in me.”

  “It’s one of my duties to see that the young men and women of the West are both protected and raised with our ideals. You do share our ideals, don’t you?” Vi nodded. “Good. Then perhaps I could put in a word with Dower and you will remain one of the crew.”

  “I’d be honored.” Vi didn’t like the idea that she was at risk of getting kicked off the ship. It would make returning to Oparium difficult, at the very least. She watched Twintle start up the gangplank once more. Vi stepped forward before she could think better of it, stopping him with a soft, “Sir?”

  “Yes?” He turned, his expression one of surprise.

  “In the stories of the old West my parents told me… red-hooded knights were always the saviors.” Vi motioned to the cape he now wore. “This made me remember those words.”

  “I see.” He had a knowing smile.

  “If such knights existed, it would be my life’s goal to serve them.” Vi stopped herself there. If she said too much, she’d risk suspicion.

  “That is most good to know.” Luke bowed his head and Vi mirrored the motion. He disappeared up the gangplank and onto the ship.

  The next morning, the whole crew was brought on deck. Dower walked the line of them, looking each up and down.

  “For many of you, this is your last day of service to Lord Twintle and the Lady Black.” Murmurs rippled through the assembled crew. “Many of you have been top-notch sailors the likes of which any captain would be lucky to have. I’ve communicated this to the Lord and he will be offering you a generous severance and a glowing recommendation for any future captains you wish to sail under.”

  “If we’re such good sailors, why is he letting us go?” one of them asked.

  “Because Lord
Twintle is having the Lady Black take on a new directive that requires a specialized crew,” Dower answered lightly. Nothing to worry about here; don’t read too closely into this, Vi mentally filled in the blanks for him. “Now, please step forward if I call your name…”

  “Louis.” That was Cole’s first mate. Expected.

  “Joyce.” The woman was a Western Waterrunner, but that was all Vi knew about her.

  “Violet.” Vi stepped forward, relieved to be included. If she stood with Louis, she stood with the group that was staying.

  “You three will remain. The rest of you can go.”

  “A-All of us, cap?” the man from earlier stuttered in shock.

  “Yes, you’re dismissed.” At Cole’s final command, the crew of the Lady Black trudged belowdecks to gather their things. Vi stood a little straighter as he addressed them once more. She was still the newest of the lot and the one with the weakest relationship with Cole. “Louis, wait for me in my cabin; we need to go over what we’ll be looking for in our new hires. Joyce, see to the crew below and escort them off if need be.”

  “Make sure there’s no trouble, you mean.” She had a wicked glint in her eye.

  “Behave,” Cole cautioned her before turning to Vi. “You, join me on the quarterdeck.”

  Vi did as she was told. Anticipation built with each step toward the back of the vessel. Cole went straight to the railing, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was around. When he spoke, he didn’t look at her.

  “You’re here on the direct order of Twintle. If it were up to me, you’d be leaving with the rest of them.”

  “Thank you for that,” Vi said, somewhat dryly. She folded her arms and leaned against the railing, looking in the opposite direction. “Or should I say to pass on my thanks to Lord Twintle?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, you’re a fine sailor, Violet. But this is going to require loyalty—something you haven’t really been tested on.”

  “What is?” She wanted him to say it outright, whatever it was. Vi was more than ready to know if all of this following Twintle was actually going to lead to information on Adela and the crown, or not.