14. Roc
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ROC
Yes, take them , the witch says. Claim them and use them and then devour them and we will all be together for an eternity.
I rush out a door on the starboard side of the ship.
All of the lanterns are off, the ship plunged in darkness save for its running lights and the distant flickering of starlight.
There is ocean stretching to the horizon on either side.
Endless darkness.
I collapse into a deck chair, head in my hands.
I suck in several deep breaths as white light blinks behind my closed lids.
I let my guard down and I could sense the witch seizing on my vulnerabilities.
She is always there, devouring me from the inside. She knows everything I want, everything I desire, and everything that terrifies me and she will use it against me.
I can feel her pressing against my insides, trying to force the monster out.
Devour them , she says again.
Devour them whole.
My stomach churns as the ship crests a wave.
Fucking hell.
I shouldn’t have brought them. I shouldn’t have brought them to Darkland where everything I’ve ever loved has died or gone.
Because now the witch knows that Wendy and the Captain…
I grit my teeth and lean back.
The witch knows how I feel…
Fuck .
I stand up, grab the deck chair by its back rail, and heave it into the ocean.
It hits the water with a splash and quickly sinks below the surface.
“Feel better?”
I look up to see Asha hiding in the shadows. I didn’t even hear her come up.
Shows just how fucked I am.
“Minimally,” I admit.
“Here.” She emerges from the darkness and offers me a clay mug with a dark liquid inside.
“What is it?”
“It’s a tea blend. My mother used to make it for me to calm my nerves.”
“Do you have nerves that need to be calmed right now?”
She shrugs. “We’re stuck on a ship with a man who won’t tell us what kind of beast he is, whose beast continues to take over and devour people bone by bone. So, a little .”
I like this girl more and more.
I take the mug and sip from it. It’s sweet and earthy, with a hint of floral.
“I think you already know what kind of beast I am,” I say, handing the drink back.
She crosses one arm over her middle, using it to prop up the opposite elbow, mug held aloft as she contemplates me. “I do have a theory.”
“And?”
“Still working. I will admit I am a scholar first, and a soldier second. Killing men was a necessary skill and I’m very good at it. But research, studying, translating, that’s what lights my soul on fire. And your past is interesting.”
“Mmmm. I think you’re giving me more credit than I’m due. My past does not matter.”
She laughs. “I think it’s the only thing that matters. Not just what you are, but who you are.”
My gaze cuts to hers. She knows.
“I left all of that behind a long time ago.”
“But has it left you?”
I take the drink from her again and down another swig. The tea is good and, surprisingly, calming. “Have you told anyone?”
“I don’t discuss theories, only facts.”
Meaning she hasn’t confirmed her suspicions with proof.
I give the mug back. “Do you have a theory about the witch?”
Asha goes to the railing and leans her back into it, the moonlight skimming her dark hair with strokes of silver. She’s wearing all black with a dagger strapped to her waist. “Let me ask you this, can what you devour hijack you entirely? Permanently?”
I sigh. “Never been proven. But this thing happening with the witch leads me to believe it’s possible.”
“Then yes, I do have a theory.”
I join her at the railing but prop my arms on the wrought iron and peer down at the churning ocean. “We have the same theory?”
“I think we do.”
I’m desperate to get away from this conversation or at least turn the tides away from me. I don’t like digging into my past. And I sure as hell don’t like thinking about my future. Not when it’s fucked.
“It occurred to me recently,” I say, “that you might be the age of someone who was around during the worst of the Kimura coup in the remote Winterland Alps.”
I don’t have to look at her to sense how she goes rigid.
“A girl your age, she might have been, what, nineteen, twenty, when the revolt began?” I glance at her.
Her jaw is locked, her nostrils flared. “Eighteen,” she corrects.
“Ahhh yes. The age a girl might be when she ascends to the Taira throne.” I half turn to her. “The age a girl might be on her wedding night when the man she just married kills her entire family and steals her throne.”
She swallows.
“I have my own theories,” I tell her.
I don’t miss the glassiness in her eyes. The way she doesn’t move yet vibrates with rage.
“You know a thing or two about running,” I guess. “So you understand why I’m reluctant to run back.”
She sucks in a long breath through her nose, takes a step closer to me. A risky thing, inching toward a monster. I respect her boldness.
“I’m not reluctant to run back,” she says, and then, with a grit of her teeth, adds, “I am honing myself like a blade. Hands strong enough to kill. A mind strong enough to trick. I’m waiting for the day when he thinks he is safe. And then I will corrode him and his court, day by day, act by act. And when he has descended into paranoia, given in to the chaos I have sown, I will slip inside his bedroom— my bedroom —and I will jam my blade into his throat.”
I smile over at her. “I admire the gentleness of your plan.”
She rocks back, frowning at me, and then she laughs. “I haven’t told anyone that plan. I’ve been afraid they’d tell me I’m crazy. Violent. Mad .”
I lean over. “Let me tell you a secret: we’re all mad.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. “I suppose you’re right, Madd brother .”
“So you do know more than you’ve let on.”
“Of course.”
“Do you know who my mother is?”
“Another theory.”
“You know who my uncle is?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have all the dots. Now connect them.”
“I think you know I already have.”
I push away from the railing. “Don’t tell them yet. Let me find out what we’re walking into on Darkland. I don’t want them to get caught in the middle if I can avoid it.”
She nods. “You’ll keep my past between us?”
“I’m not much for gossip. Would you like to pinkie promise?”
She snorts. “You know I don’t consider them binding, right?”
I hold up my hand between us, pinkie outstretched and say nothing.
She huffs. “Two pinkie promises in one day. A new record.”
We hook fingers and shake.
“I’m honored that both belong to me. You do know that if you break a pinkie promise, I get to break the pinkie?”
“I’d like to see you try,” she says and slips back inside the ship.