The lock is the easy part. It’s only been a few weeks since I last picked a lock, but it’s a simple padlock, and I have years of practice breaking into homes in the Royal Sector. The hallway was quiet and dark, with no one about this early. As I suspected, the captain is one of the few up and around, and if Kilbourne went to Corrick, the prince will keep him distracted while I find out what’s so important about this small, locked room.
I don’t know what I’ll find, whether it’s detailed records or secret weapons or barrels of gunpowder. I simply have no idea what Rian could be hiding in here that would be worth all this tension with the prince.
Somewhere deep inside, I’m terrified that I’m wrong, that this is a betrayal, that I’ll reveal something horrible.
But I keep thinking of every moment I’ve looked into Rian’s eyes. He’s not horrible. He’s not. If he’s hiding something from Corrick, it’s because he doesn’t trust the prince.
I wish I’d brought a lantern. It’s very dark down here. I might need to swipe whatever I find and sneak it back to my quarters. Hopefully it’s something small.
Click. The lock gives. The door swings open. I smell seawater and mildew, and something surprisingly floral, but the room is a well of darkness. I can’t see anything at all.
Without warning, a figure explodes through the doorway. It’s too dark for me to see much, but I catch a glimpse of long, wild blond hair, wide dark eyes, and a filthy face. It’s a woman—or a girl, I can’t tell. She screams in rage.
Then she slams right into me with enough force to nearly knock me off my feet.
I cry out in surprise, then throw up a hand when she swings a fist at my face. Pain explodes behind my eyes, then in my forearm. I fall back involuntarily. Too much is happening all at once. It doesn’t help that she’s pummeling me like she wants to break every bone in my body. I’m lucky that she hits like a child, all weak strikes with bony knuckles.
“Stop!” I cry. She might be weak, but she’s quick, and I can’t seem to catch her wrists or hold her off. I’m thinking of the number of times Corrick said I should take some lessons from the weapons master, and the equal number of times I told him it could wait. “Stop—stop it!”
Finally, my thoughts catch up, and I swing a punch at her midsection. She’s practically weightless, and I feel ribs when my fist connects. She grunts in pain, then slips to the side.
I all but throw myself to my feet in the shadowed hallway.
Again, she’s quick. She leaps off the floor and tackles my back. Her fingernails dig into my arms, and I struggle to take a step forward.
“Corrick!” I shout, just as I feel her break the skin. “Guards! Help!”
The girl on my back hisses into my ear. “I’m going to kill you all.”
Well, now I know why he kept that door locked.
I throw an elbow back and hear her grunt. It hardly dislodges her. I stagger forward, bearing her weight.
A light flares to life in front of me, and I gasp. A lantern. I gasp in relief.
But it’s not Corrick. It’s not the guards.
It’s Marchon, with Gwyn at his back. The flickering candlelight turns their faces into nightmarish caricatures.
Especially when Marchon plucks the girl off me, twisting her arms behind her back until she squeals in pain. Gwyn points a crossbow at me.
I’m frozen in place. I don’t know what’s happening.
I raise my hands. “Please,” I gasp. My arms are stinging from where the girl clawed at me. “Please. I don’t know—”
“How did she get out?” Gwyn demands.
Before I can even answer, Marchon swings the lantern.
The padlock is visible on the ground. Both their eyes shift back to me.
“She picked the lock,” Marchon says. “Sablo!” he shouts.
The young woman—because it is a young woman, I can see now, rail thin in clothes that all but hang from her frame—tries to kick at Marchon, squirming in his grasp. “I’m going to kill all of you,” she snaps. “Oren will set fire to this ship and then you’ll—” She breaks off with a gasp when Marchon tightens his grip.
Oren. Oren Crane? I swallow and look at Gwyn. “What’s going on?” I say. “Who is she?”
Her expression is full of sorrow and also resignation. She sighs, then gestures with the crossbow. “Walk, Tessa. Rian’s going to have to decide what to do. Bring her along, Marchon.”
The young woman grunts and struggles. “I’m going to slit Rian’s throat with a—”
“Enough.” Marchon clamps a hand over her mouth— then lets go with a yelp. “She bit me!”
The woman does one better. She punches him right in the throat.
Marchon chokes and drops her. She sprints away.
I want to do the same, but Gwyn steps closer with the crossbow. “Don’t, Tessa.”
“Who is she?” I say again. “Gwyn, who is she?”
The girl disappears into the darkness—but a moment later, there’s a thump. The girl lets out a brief shriek, followed by a low sob of pain. Figures slide out of the shadows, and I recognize Sablo’s large form, pinning her more effectively than Marchon did.
She’s cursing a blue streak, and she spits at Gwyn when they come near.
Then she starts coughing. Her breathing turns to a wheeze, and her struggles against Sablo’s grip seem to turn more panicked.
“Let her go!” I cry. “She can’t breathe.”
He glances at Gwyn, who shrugs, and he loosens his grip fractionally.
The girl catches her breath, then swings her head back like she wants to crack him in the face with her skull. Sablo jerks back, then tightens his grip.
“My father should have cut off more than your tongue,” she says roughly. “I know what I’ll start with when I get the chance.”
My father. I can’t put this together fast enough. “Your father is Oren Crane,” I say.
“He is.” She bares her teeth. “I hope he hangs Rian from the bow of his ship until the gulls peck every bit of flesh from his bones.”
I look from her to Gwyn and back to Sablo and Marchon. “Rian is keeping Oren Crane’s daughter prisoner?”
“You don’t understand,” says Gwyn. “Walk, Tessa.”
I don’t know if I can. I’m still too stunned. This is so much bigger than hidden weapons or secret letters or anything Corrick might have imagined. I just don’t know why. It’s so counter to everything I’ve learned about Rian in the last few days that I simply can’t make any of it seem reasonable in my mind.
My thoughts aren’t getting any clearer with that crossbow pointed at my chest.
Another voice speaks from the darkness. “Lower that weapon, Gwyn. We have your captain.”
Corrick. I almost sag with relief.
Gwyn doesn’t lower the weapon. If anything, she pulls closer to me, until I feel the point of the arrow against my skin. I feel every beat of my heart.
“Gwyn,” I whisper. “Please. I don’t understand.”
More figures step through the shadows. Corrick, trailed by Rocco—who’s all but shoving Rian ahead of him, a knife against the captain’s neck.
I expect a moment of negotiation. A discussion. An argument. Because clearly Corrick is using Rian as leverage.
But Gwyn takes that crossbow off me and aims at Corrick. I hear the click and the snap an instant before I realize what it means.
Rocco is quicker than I am. He lets go of the captain in time to shove Corrick out of the way, but that bolt hits something, because I hear the impact, the grunt of pain in the shadows. I don’t know who it struck.
Then Kilbourne is there, shoving me away from Marchon just before the sailor pulls a knife. Glass shatters, and the lantern goes dim, plunging us into near-total
darkness. A body slams me into the wall, and I lose sense of which way is out. I want to run, but I don’t know where to go.
“Corrick,” I cry.
He doesn’t answer.
My mouth goes dry. I hear the sound of a blade piercing flesh. Male voices are shouting, crossbows are firing, and over the top of it all, that woman is screaming in rage. I can’t make sense of any of it. Panic keeps my heart racing at a rapid clip.
Out of nowhere, a fist connects with my shoulder, knocking me to the floorboards. A body lands on top of me, and I cry out. Just as quickly, I’m flipped onto my stomach, and my hands are jerked behind my back.
“Please,” I say. The woman’s shrieking is piercing my thoughts. “Please—I just wanted—”
“Enough,” a man growls. I think it’s Marchon.
Someone throws a punch, and the woman’s screaming goes quiet.
All I hear is my breathing. Someone is binding my hands, and then I’m wrenched upright, onto my knees. My shoulder feels like it’s being ripped out of its socket.
A match sparks in the darkness, and a new lantern flares to life.
The scene is worse than I was expecting.
Corrick is on his knees, bleeding from his temple, but he’s slumped against the wall. At first I think he’s just dazed, but then I realize his eyes are closed, and his hands are bound just like mine are. Blood is in a spray across the front of his jacket.
“Corrick,” I whisper.
He doesn’t move. My heart thumps. But I watch carefully, and his chest rises and falls with breath.
Beside him, the young woman is unconscious on the floor, limbs sprawled, but there’s no blood.
Then my eyes shift left, and I recognize one of our guards. Sandy hair, a stocky build. Kilbourne.
Facedown, two bolts from the crossbow in his back. I wait, but his chest doesn’t rise at all.
I didn’t want to leave Sara. That’s what he said on the dock. I want to buy her a house.
I’ve seen death a thousand times by now, but this is different. I have to stop a whimper from choking out of my throat.
Rocco is on the floor, too, but he’s still alive. He’s panting, bleeding from a wound in his side, and Sablo and Rian both have a crossbow pointed at him. There’s blood on Sablo’s face, and a fair amount on his clothes, too. Rian has a trail of blood running from a slice on his neck, soaking into his shirt and jacket. His eyes are dark and terrifying in the shadows.
Sablo looks at the captain, then draws a finger across his throat, an eyebrow raised. A question.
“No!” I shout. “Rian, no. Please. Please.” I can’t get the words out fast enough, but they’ve already killed one guard. I can’t watch them execute Rocco, too. I can’t. “Please, Rian.” My voice breaks. “Please. He’s a good man.”
“He’s a sailor. Proof that Prince Corrick didn’t honor our agreement.”
“No.” My voice breaks. “He’s a guard. A loyal guard who’s risked his life more than once. Please. Rian. Don’t hurt him.”
Rocco is glaring up at them both, but he speaks to me. “Don’t beg for me, Miss Tessa. He knows what he’s done. He knows what will happen when they catch up to him.”
Rian looks at me. “You should have left the room alone, Tessa. What’s been done here can’t be undone.”
“Please,” I say. “Please just … just explain. I want to understand. Was this all a trick to hold the prince for ransom? Was this … was this for …?” My voice trails off. I can’t even understand it. Everything seems unnecessarily complicated.
Then my eyes fall on the unconscious woman again. I don’t know where she fits in with any of this.
“Rian,” says Gwyn. Her voice is quiet and resigned. “We shouldn’t leave the guards alive.”
“Please,” I whisper.
Rian doesn’t move. A muscle twitches in his jaw. His crew is waiting.
I tug at the ropes binding my hands. “You don’t want to do this,” I say. “I know you don’t. You won’t let your crew fight. You don’t want to kill him. I know there’s a reason, if you’d just let me understand—”
“Tessa.” His eyes flick to mine. “It’s bigger than you and me.”
I hold my breath, because those crossbows are still pointed.
After an eternal moment, Rian lowers his. “Bind him as well,” he says. “Bring them all up to the main deck. Chain them to the masts. If the others survived, do the same with them, too.”
The others. Lochlan and Silas. My heart clenches.
Tell Karri I loved her.
“Rian,” I say. My chest is tight.
“It wasn’t for ransom,” he says to me. “Truly.” He grabs hold of Corrick’s arm and hauls him upright with enough force that the prince moans and his eyes flicker open.
Corrick sees who has him and tries to jerk away.
Rian gives him a good shake. “Walk,” he snaps. Then he looks at me. “At least it wasn’t supposed to be for ransom. But now …” He sighs. “Now, it’s going to have to be.”
