Corrick
By the time the pirates come for us, Lochlan and I have some semblance of a plan. It’s rough, but well suited, because it won’t require a lot of lying.
I hate everything about it.
Six pirates stand outside our cage, including Lina. Four men and two women. They’re all armed, most with daggers and knives or crossbows, though one man has a sword. When they open the cage door, I expect them to charge in, to separate us and bind our hands, but they don’t.
The biggest one just nods at the doorway. His name is Mouse, and we’ve seen him before. It has to be a nickname, because he’s massive. He’s not overly tall, just packed with so much muscle that I think he could give Rocco a run for his money. He’s even bigger than Sablo, a man Rian had on the Dawn Chaser. Mouse probably could have ripped the cage door right off its hinges.
On the night we were captured, when I tried to run, Mouse caught me by the ankle and held me upside down like I was a rag doll.
“Let’s go,” Mouse says, and his voice is very rough, very quiet. He’s always remarkably soft-spoken for his size. “Oren is ready for you.”
“Both of us?” says Lochlan.
Mouse nods. “Both of you.”
We uncurl from the ground and move to follow.
The pirates give us no warnings, and so many weapons hang within reach. With our hands unbound, we could go for daggers and fight back right now. We’re still in the woods, and there’s no one nearby to hear and assist. Two against six isn’t so terrible. Mouse would be the biggest challenge. One of the men with a crossbow has it hanging along his back. Lina and the other woman are laughing behind us, distracted.
Lochlan glances at me, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.
But it’s too obvious. Too easy.
It feels like a test.
This wasn’t a part of our plan. I give a tiny shake of my head, hoping he doesn’t decide to attack them anyway. I sense that pulling Mouse’s hair would not end well.
Lochlan turns his eyes forward. We keep walking.
It’s hotter here than it would be in most of Kandala. More humid, too, reminding me of the summertime climate in Sunkeep, the southernmost sector—though we’re into autumn now. Once we break out of the trees, the sun truly beats down on us, and sweat immediately blooms under my tunic, the glare making me throw up an arm to cover my eyes. But then my boots crunch on gravel instead of the mossy softness of the woods, and I blink and look down.
We’re on a road. In the distance to my left, the road leads down a hill to the sudden appearance of squat buildings and homes and structures that seem to go on forever, people and horses and wagons milling about—a small town, or even a city. Straight ahead of me is a wide swath of long grass that stretches on for at least a mile, where it appears to drop off into the ocean. I see nothing beyond but glittering water, sparkling in the sun, a few small boats bobbing with the current.
For some reason, I’d assumed we were on a remote island with the pirates. Someplace hidden and nearly deserted. The city is a few miles off, but this is very much . . . not deserted.
That could be promising. If we could escape, it would be a lot easier to hide in a city.
“Which island is this?” I say to Lina and Mouse.
“Silvesse,” Mouse says. He points out at the water. “That way’s south, so you can’t see the others from this side.”
I can see the sun, which tells me which way we’re facing, but he’s politely answering my question instead of knocking my head in, so I give him a nod and say, “Thank you, Mouse.”
Lina jabs him with her elbow and rolls her eyes. “They know which way is south, idiot.”
He frowns. “I’m not an idiot.”
One of the other men, the one with the sword, says, “Both of you, knock it off.” But his voice is tired, like minor bickering between Lina and Mouse is a common occurrence that no one wants to deal with. “Just walk.”
We walk, but now Lina is muttering insults at Mouse, while his mouth is silently curled in a frown.
Maybe their distraction isn’t a trap at all. Maybe it’s genuine.
Lochlan must sense it too, because he glances at me again.
It’s so tempting. If there were only four of them, I might chance it. If they had no crossbows, I’d definitely chance it. But it doesn’t matter if we can face all of them hand to hand when it only takes one of them to shoot us.
I keep my eyes on the road and give a little shake of my head again.
Lochlan clenches his jaw. He doesn’t like it—but he obeys.
Well, there’s a surprise. Perhaps I can still be a little princely.
I hope we’re walking all the way to the city, just because I’m intrigued by the potential, even if the thought of walking for miles in this heat is a little wearying. But we only walk parallel to the ocean for a short time before we turn off the road and head into the trees again.
Behind us, Lina and Mouse have fallen silent, though I’ve now heard her call him a dozen different insults and it’s a contemptuous kind of silence. I glance back at Mouse and wonder if he’ll answer more questions. “How far do we have to go?”
“Not far.” He points vaguely, then peers back at me. “If you’re too tired to walk, they’ll make me carry you.”
I shake my head quickly. “I can walk.”
But I think about how he phrased that. They’ll make me. Mouse might be the biggest man here, but he doesn’t have the most power.
I think about Lina’s steady stream of insults, the way he said nothing.
Maybe he doesn’t have any power.
“I thought Oren might be in the city,” I say.
A woman behind me snorts, and I glance over my shoulder. She’s older, close to forty, with heavily scarred arms and closely shorn hair. “Redstone’s got eyes around every corner. You’ll never find Oren in the city.”
Redstone.The name tugs at my memories, and it takes me a moment to realize they’re talking about Rian. The whole time he was pretending to be Captain Blakemore, he was really Galen Redstone, the king of Ostriary.
“So he hides in the woods?” says Lochlan.
“Oh, he isn’t hiding.” The man with the sword shakes his head and glares at the older woman. “Oren’s got his own people around every corner, too, Esther.”
“Oh, shut it, Ian.”
This time they start bickering, arguing over who has the most spies in the city. I don’t mind, though. It’s very telling. These pirates aren’t unified—and it’s interesting to hear Rian discussed in this way.
While they ramble at each other, Lochlan gives me another significant glance. I don’t even look at him. I’m worried about the other two, the men who haven’t said a word.
Eventually we head downhill, and the going is so steep that my boots catch on roots and underbrush and I have to grab at tree trunks to keep my balance. There’s no path at all, and I don’t know what signified that this was the direction to go. I can’t imagine that Mouse would have carried us all this way. I look up at his broad shoulders and figure he probably could have.
When the ground flattens, it goes soft, sand shifting among the underbrush. I hear water just before the trees open up, and then we’re in the sun again, standing on the beach, facing west now. This appears to be a small cove, with a rowboat pulled up onshore, a larger ship bobbing in the waves out in the ocean. I wonder if it’s anchored there.
Then Ian says, “Push the rowboat out. You two can row.”
I don’t know how to do much with a boat, but the pirates are staring at me and Lochlan expectantly, so we brace our hands on the wood.
Lochlan glances at me with my hands on the rail and keeps his voice very quiet as he says, “No. Go low. It’ll be hard to move it at first.”
I put my hands against the hull, then my shoulder, and we throw our weight into it. The boat barely moves an inch, but it shifts in the sand.
“Maybe this is a bad time to mention this,” I whisper, “but I don’t know how to row.”
“I figured,” he grunts. “Just sit behind me and watch.”
Once the boat moves away from the sand, we’re clearly expected to stay with it, and my boots fill with water immediately. Amazing. Lochlan grabs hold of the rail and hoists himself over, and I hear a little whimper as he does so.
I forgot about his arm.
I say nothing. It won’t do any good for the pirates to know.
It’s harder to get into the boat than I expect, but once we’re in, the others join us, and I take hold of the oars behind Lochlan. Once I figure out the rhythm, it’s not hard, but it’s hot, and I’m not practiced at this. It’s clear that they’ve made us row so we can’t cause trouble. I remember Rian telling us that Oren would hide in coves among the islands, and I wonder if he’s on this waiting ship. I consider the way Ian talked about Redstone’s eyes in the city and wonder if Oren is rarely on land at all. Rian once said that Oren had lost favor here in Ostriary, that the people were tired and just wanted to rebuild after years at war. They were counting on Rian to get to Kandala and negotiate for steel.
I guess that’s not happening anytime soon.
I blink in the glare and look past Lochlan’s shoulder at the ship in the distance. I wonder if this is the ship that shot us off the deck of the Dawn Chaser.
I’m trying my best to keep up with Lochlan’s smooth strokes through the water, but I’ve never done this before. It’s obvious that my inexperience is evident when Lina puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Not much of a sailor, are you, Wes?”
I grit my teeth and pull hard on the oars. “I have other skills.”
I didn’t mean for it to sound coy or taunting, but some of the pirates whistle. Lina laughs from behind me, and then her breath is hot on my neck, her body pressed against my spine. “Is that so?” she purrs, her fingers tracing up the outside of my arm. “I can’t wait to hear.”
The oars go still in my hands, and for an instant I consider shoving one right back at her. It would take almost no effort. I could put it right through her throat.
Because this is a game I won’t play.
But Lochlan looks over his shoulder. “Fair warning: he’s not talking about those kind of skills.”
I don’t know what she hears in his voice, whether it’s cool practicality or just plain honesty, but the heat of her body disappears from my back.
I say nothing and start rowing again.
It doesn’t take long to reach the ship, and once we’re there, we have to climb a rope ladder. I watch Lochlan favor his arm all the way up, and I worry that the pirates might notice, so I try to go more slowly, so a distance forms between me and him.
Lina is behind me, and she smacks my ankle. “Move,” she snaps. No purring now.
“I have rope burns from before,” I say, which is true, though they’ve mostly healed. “I’m going as fast as I can.”
Eventually, we reach the top. We climb over the rail, and one of the nameless men jabs me with a crossbow and tells me to stand with Lochlan.
I was already doing that, but I scowl and move closer.
But then a man tsks, and a voice says, “Here now, have they not been well behaved?”
There, standing nearly six and a half feet tall, with a jagged scar on his face and another two dozen men surrounding him on the deck, is Oren Crane.
“They’ve been respectable,” Mouse says in his rough-soft voice. “They gave us no trouble.”
“Ugh, quit being so earnest,” says Lina. She moves close to me and bumps me with her hip, but now it’s not coy so much as aggressive. “We could have had a bit of fun.”
“I’m not having fun,” I say.
“Me either,” says Lochlan.
“You’ve been well cared for,” says Oren. His eyebrows go up and it pulls at the scar. “You claim you’re not having fun?”
I look straight at him. That first night, I was half drowned, but I got him off his feet and put a knife against his chest. I remember the flare of surprise in his eyes, the quick burst of panic. He’s not used to people taking him by surprise, and it was obvious. The other pirates dragged me off him, but for a bare second, I had the upper hand, and we both know it.
It makes me want to grab a knife or seize a crossbow or something that would demonstrate the weaknesses in the people he has working for him. To poke holes in his confidence. In theirs. It makes me want to show him I can take the upper hand if I want it.
But I wouldn’t be able to keep it. Not against this many people.
And as much as I hate it, we’re going to need Oren Crane.
“We’ve been locked in a cage for more than a week,” I say. “I’m sorry to report it wasn’t entertaining.”
“I know you have,” he says. “I can smell you from here. But you’ll have to forgive me. I’ve been busy. That prick still has my daughter.”
For a second, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Then my thoughts catch up, and I’m glad I have years of experience at court politics, because I’m able to keep any hint of surprise off my face.
Oren Crane still believes that Bella, his daughter, is alive.
Instead of at the bottom of the ocean, or in the belly of some whale, or wherever bodies go when they fall off a ship—or when they’re blown off a ship, as the case may be. She disappeared when two brigantines from Kandala attacked the Dawn Chaser with cannons.
Rian—“that prick”—was keeping Bella prisoner as leverage against this man.
And now he thinks Rian is still keeping her prisoner. My thoughts race as I consider how to play this. Lochlan and I hadn’t considered Bella being alive in our strategizing.
But if we’re going to be disparaging against Rian, I’m all in.
“That prick killed my prince,” I say. “If you were busy going after him, you shouldn’t have locked us in a cage. We would’ve helped you.”
He bursts out laughing. “I should have brought the prince’s young servant along? Would you have served tea? Buttoned jackets?” He rubs at his throat. “Now that you mention it, I could use a shave.”
I smile. “By all means, bring me a blade.”
“Careful,” Lochlan says under his breath.
But I don’t need to be careful now. This isn’t like the moment when I refused to eat, where Lochlan’s lessons in the Wilds probably did save my life. Now it’s time for my lessons. I’ve been dealing with men like Oren Crane my entire life: older and powerful and full of disdain, because they always think they know best. It makes them careless and sloppy, because they’re unwilling to look beyond what they want—but they have too much power to realize just how much of a mess they’re making of everything.
It’s probably the very reason Rian took the throne, while this man is hiding here on this ship, thinking he has a chance at getting it back.
And now I’m going to have to deal with him.
“I wasn’t that kind of servant,” I say.
“Lochlan mentioned that Weston here has other skills,” Lina says. She presses close to me again, but her voice has turned mocking. “What did you do for your prince, servant boy?” Some of the sailors whistle, so she smiles, encouraged. Her voice drops to a whisper as she traces a finger over my lips suggestively, then moves to stroke a hand down my chest. “What did he like you to do for him?”
I grab hold of her wrist, spinning her around so quickly that I hear muscles tear—or bones crack. She cries out, but I jerk her back against my chest, gripping her throat with enough force that I could break her neck.
But I don’t.
Half a dozen crossbows are pointed at me, but none have fired yet. Most of the men on the deck are staring at me in shock.
I look at Oren Crane. “I killed people.”
Lina is trying to struggle against me, and little whimpered gasps are coming out of her throat. I definitely hurt something. I have years of experience with prisoners in the Hold who actually tried to kill me, so I don’t yield an inch. Her pulse pounds fast and hard against my hand, and she’s fighting to inhale.
Beside me, Lochlan is having no trouble. His breaths are coming quickly, like he’s unsure of the path we’ve decided to follow.
I want to kick him. This was your idea! I want to shout.
And it was. He sat in the grit of the cage and almost goaded me about it.
It should be no trouble to convince them you did vile things for the prince, he said. You don’t even have to pretend to be vicious.
He’s right. I don’t.
I have to shove aside thoughts of Tessa when I’m like this. She’s a weight in my heart that I feel every time it beats, but she hates this part of me.
If being vicious means a chance to rescue her, I’ll do it. If it means a chance to get back to Kandala and my brother, I’ll do it.
Oren is staring at me. The others are staring between the two of us.
“So the rumors about Kandala’s royal family are true,” he says appraisingly.
I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I remember what Rian used to think of Kandala, and none of it was good. “The prince had ways to make sure order was maintained,” I say.
“Prove it,” he says.
Lina squeals and tries to throw me off, but my grip is too tight.
The men around me are absolutely silent. Mouse is wringing his hands. “Mr. Crane,” he says softly.
“Death can’t be undone,” I say.
“I know,” says Oren. “Do it.”
My thoughts ice over, my vision turning dark. I don’t want to do this.
As usual, fate doesn’t care what I want.
Thoughts of Tessa sneak into my head anyway, a memory of the day she found me in the Hold, soaked in blood after I’d been forced to execute two prisoners. I have to choke back a whimper. Please, my love. Forgive me.
I’ve done it before. I can do it again.
I don’t want to do it again.
But my grip on Lina tightens.
“No,” says Lochlan. “We don’t work for you. What’s the pay?”
I freeze. Lina’s breathing is so thin it’s barely a whistle. She’s almost limp against me, hardly struggling now.
No one has come to her rescue. None of them are willing to stand against Oren Crane.
“The pay?” Oren says incredulously.
“Yeah,” says Lochlan. “The pay. The prince paid a lot. You gave us a week in a cell. Wes isn’t your errand boy. If you don’t like Lina, pay up, or kill her yourself.”
Oren looks like Lochlan just told him to eat a handful of sand. “You’re my prisoners!” he seethes. “I am not paying you to—”
“Fair enough.” I let Lina go. She drops like a rock, crumpling to the deck, gasping for air. I can hear her rage with every inhale. Her arm is hanging crookedly against the deck. I think I’ve dislocated her shoulder.
The glances between us and Oren have redoubled.
“I don’t work for free.” I glance at Lochlan. “He doesn’t either.”
Oren’s face is turning red. “I could kill you—”
“Go ahead,” I say. “That’s better than going back to that cell. Either way, you’re wasting time. You want your daughter back, and you want Redstone off the throne. We want him dead. We want to go back to Kandala. We could be helping each other.”
Lina roars in sudden rage and launches herself at my legs, but I kick her back, then drop to a knee and pin her to the deck by her throat.
She spits at me. I think she’d take a swing at me, too, but her arm won’t work.
I glare down at her. “Touch me again,” I say, “and he won’t have to pay me a cent.”
Whatever she sees in my expression must be chilling, because fear lights in her eyes, and she goes still.
“Why should I trust either of you?” Oren says. “It doesn’t seem like the pet henchman of a nefarious prince would make a very trustworthy ally.” He sniffs and looks disdainfully at Lochlan. “And I honestly don’t know why I need to bother with a deckhand.”
“A deckhand.” Lochlan looks at me. “He thinks I’m a deckhand.”
I let go of Lina and straighten. This is the harder part of our plan to sell, but we’re halfway there. I keep my expression bored and look back at Oren. “You already know he’s more than just a deckhand, or you wouldn’t have locked him in the cell with me.”
I have no idea whether that’s true, but this kind of false praise works well at court. It makes him sound intelligent, calculating. He’s not going to deny that.
“Then what are your skills?” Oren says to Lochlan. His voice turns suggestive, just like Lina’s was. “What did you do for the prince?”
Eyes flick to me before shifting back to Lochlan. No one whistles or jeers this time.
“I didn’t do anything for the prince,” Lochlan says. “I was a spy for the king.”
Complete silence. Any hint of mockery is gone from Oren’s expression. He’s regarding us steadily.
I’m mentally throwing daggers at Lochlan, warning him not to say another word.
Here’s one ofmy lessons, I said to him when we were planning. The more people talk, the more it tells me they’re lying. Lies require convincing. When people are telling the truth, it’s simple.
He snorted at me. Did you learn that from interrogating prisoners?
When I said yes, he wasn’t happy.
But the lesson must have stuck, because he keeps his mouth shut.
“So the royal family of Kandala really can’t be trusted,” Oren finally says.
“They can be trusted to maintain their own interests,” I say. “By whatever means necessary.”
Oren takes a few steps closer, evaluating us both. “Fine. There’s a man in central Silvesse named Ford Cheeke. He monitors the shipping logs in and out of the main harbor. He’s well guarded, because the harbor is full of sailors loyal to Redstone. Cheeke also has a secret way to pass messages to Redstone’s people on Fairde, but we haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“And you want us to figure it out,” says Lochlan.
“Yes. And I want you to bring me his head by daybreak tomorrow.”
Beside me, I can hear Lochlan swallow, so I say, “How much?”
At my feet, Lina growls, “I should have poisoned your food.”
“You’re right. You should have.” I keep my eyes on Oren. “How much?”
“One hundred silvers.”
Someone on the deck swears, and I think I hear a whistle from someone else.
“Half now,” I say.
He bursts out laughing. “You can have ten now, just because I know you need to clean yourselves up. The rest when you come back.”
I glance around at the men and women on deck. “And I want six of your people if Cheeke is so well guarded.”
“No,” says Oren. “Just you two. I’m not having Redstone come after me when this goes poorly. If you’re lying, I have eyes in Silvesse, too, so I’ll get you back eventually.” He pauses, and a light sparks in his eye. “If you’re not lying, a spy and a killer should find this task to be fairly easy.”
I have no idea how we’re going to find a man we’ve never met in a city we’ve never seen, especially in less than a day. But it’s ten silvers and a little bit of freedom.
It’s more than we had an hour ago.
Still breathing.
I glance at Lochlan, then back at Oren. “Give us the silver. You’re on.”
