Chapter 36 Cav
THIRTY-SIX
Cav
Cav shoves through the marketplace. People grunt and shout, but he finally breaks through the crowd and takes off toward the north of the island. A worn path meanders through sand dunes, dotted with stragglers wandering the outskirts of the port.
The further he goes, the more everything dwindles.
Twilight has fully settled. The path fades into rough terrain, covered in beachgrass and rocks that Cav’s feet catch on.
Crickets chirp near his ankles, no longer dampened by the throng of people.
For a while, there’s nothing but insects and frogs until the sound of waves returns.
He’s getting closer. Wind ruffles the grass, but he pushes through it to find the abandoned boathouse on the shoreline. It’s a dark blot against the horizon with no torches in the broken, rotted windows. Nothing stirs inside.
Cav’s pace slows. He tries to take a full breath, but standing in the dark so far from everyone else makes his chest tight.
Maybe he should have thought this through.
He could have told Briar and Lace what was happening, or at least warned them to come after him.
What if this is a setup? What if Lyx isn’t here at all?
Foolish pirate.
Her voice stirs in his head. That’s the only thing that gives him hope. She has to be here. She has to be alive. If there’s even a chance she’s in trouble, he’s going after her.
Clenching his jaw, Cav slinks toward the boathouse.
It’s a strange sensation to be cautious and feel that inkling of uncertainty.
His scales prickle as his gaze darts around the structure.
Something moves in the window – or is it just the shadows playing tricks on him?
He freezes. Is someone watching him from inside?
He forces himself to keep moving. For once, he hates the glow his body gives off, a muted beacon through his clothing. He grips his collar to keep it closed, wincing when the weathered stairs creak beneath him. There is no hiding his arrival. Whomever is waiting for him knows he’s here.
The boathouse door hangs off its hinges and blocks the entrance. Beyond it, there is nothing but darkness and the skitter of dead leaves across the floor.
If love is real, then I have to keep going.
Teeth bared, he lowers his shoulder to the door and breaks his way inside.
It scrapes the floor, leaving a gap barely big enough to squeeze through.
Cav tilts his ear toward the opening and strains to hear.
Besides the low thrum of waves, there are no other sounds.
He tries to wedge past the door, but his shirt catches on a rusty nail, ripping a strip of fabric off the bottom.
He curses, heart pounding before he tears himself free and squeezes inside.
Stars blink through the holes of the dilapidated roof. The floor is rough with sand and salt, and the ember inside him sheds light on moldy ropes and water-logged buckets. A few feet in front of him is an open boat bay where the ocean sloshes against its walls.
But no sign of Lyx.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t care for her after all.”
Cav tenses for an attack. To his right, a match strikes against the wall and catches on the tip of a cigar. It glows red on the face of a man behind it.
There’s no telling what type of creature he is.
His face is crusted with barnacles and anemones, gray skin pulled brittle and taut over his bones.
Every movement he makes looks like a struggle.
His chest rises shallowly, crushed beneath the small crustaceans embedded there.
Tiny organisms cling to his body, twitching and stretching and draining the very life from him.
This must be the man who left the note, but seeing him doesn’t help Cav understand. Who is he? What does he want? “Where’s Lyx?”
The man takes a slow drag before he points his cigar at Cav. “Cavalier. That’s what your name is.” Smoke slips between his lips when he coughs. “You’d think I would have remembered something that fucking stupid, but you’ll forgive me. It’s been years.”
Cav’s brows knit. What does he mean? Cav doesn’t know that face. He can hardly make it out, but then the man presses his cigar to the wick of a candle until it shines on his malicious smile.
An eerie familiarity skitters up Cav’s spine. He knows that smile. He saw it the last day on the convoy. “Prodeus?”
Ash falls from the cigar while the man hacks and spits on the floor. “That name’s so tired. ‘Tidus’ has more of a Captain ring to it, don’t you think?” He grins. “I have you to thank for that.”
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a frayed roll of parchment. When he opens it to the light, Cav sees it’s covered in jotted images and scribbled notes.
Cav’s notes.
His heart lurches. Those are all his references, his shoddy illustrations, his damning circle around Lyx’s grotto. A sickly feeling swirls in his stomach. “How did you get that?”
“Once you washed back up, you kept saying a siren saved you. I never believed you. No one did…but I kept an eye on you.” Prodeus — Tidus takes another puff of his cigar and waves the map between his fingers. “Plucked it right out of your pocket that last day. You never even noticed.”
Shame burns through Cav. He remembers Prodeus’s hand on his back as he sent him off the ship. It was all a distraction. Cav spent two years regretting his carelessness, but he never lost the map in port. He never lost the map at all.
Tidus stole it.
“Don’t be sad, kid.” Tidus lifts the map to the flame and lets it catch. “All your hard work paid off. She was right where you said she’d be.”
Cav grits his teeth to fight his panic. “Where is she? What did you do to her?”
“Easy…” Tidus clicks his tongue. “So impatient for someone who took their sweet time getting here.” He carries the candle to a work table along the wall without any hurry in his movements.
“Look,” Cav tries, “I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is, I’ll get it. I just need to see her —”
Tidus lifts two pinched fingers in the air. “What’s this?”
Even when Cav squints, he can’t make out what Tidus is holding. Only when Tidus lowers it near the candle does the light catch on it. It’s a small object, milky white reflecting the flame in its glossy sheen.
“A — pearl?” Cav guesses. “What does that have to do —”
“Good,” Tidus hums. “Now, what does it do?”
Cav scoffs helplessly. What the fuck does that mean? He tries to think of an answer, any answer, but his mind is blank.
Tidus crouches to set the candle on the floor. He’s closer to the open boat bays than Cav realized. Docking loops line the platform, and sodden ropes trail off of them into the dark patch of water.
One of the ropes looks fresh. It’s knotted around a metal loop, but it stretches toward the ceiling and disappears into the dark, like it’s hoisting something off the ground.
Tidus nudges the candle beneath the rope.
Cav’s claws dig into his palms. “I don’t know what you’re asking. Where is Lyx? Where —”
Unhurried, Tidus tilts the candle. Flames lap around the knot.
Cav’s eyes jerk toward the rafters, but he can’t make out anything. No movement. No motion. Nothing but an overwhelming dark that saturates everything.
His stomach roils. “What do you want?”
“The answer.”
“I don’t know!” Cav shouts. Blood pulses through him. His body itches to move, to knock Tidus into the water, to do something. His weight shifts onto the balls of his feet —
Tidus yanks a pistol from the back of his waistband. “Stay right fucking there.”
Cav’s body jerks to a halt. His calves spasm, but his feet root in place like he’s nailed to the floor. He doesn’t want to stop. He wants to move, he wants to —
Light glows beneath Tidus’s shirt. For a merciful moment, Cav thinks the fire has sparked onto his clothing, but the flame is still eating away at the rope. One of the strands snaps, springing apart and jolting something near the ceiling.
Cav strains to make it out. When the shape sinks lower, he sees Lyx trapped in a fishing net.
It digs into her legs, pulling tight around her body to keep her arms trapped.
She struggles to move, eyes wide and screams muffled by the rag bound around her head.
It pulls tight across her neck and gills.
Attached to her feet is a bag filled with rocks swaying threateningly over the ten-foot drop.
Fear sinks its teeth into Cav. When the candle burns through the rope, Lyx will plummet into the water. Her body will transform and tangle in the netting while her gills are smothered by the wet rag. The rocks will drag her to the bottom of the sea and keep her there.
She’ll drown.
“Got your attention now, huh?” Tidus smirks, but it’s short-lived. Impatience fills his eyes again. “Heathen has a stash of these pearls on the Indulgence.” He leans down to blow on the fire lapping at the rope. “They must be for something.”
“I don’t know!” Cav’s breath notches in his chest. He has to save Lyx, but it’s like he can’t move. He can’t answer Tidus’s impossible questions. He can’t do anything. “I don’t know what the pearls are for!”
Tidus lifts the candle. “Time’s ticking.”
“I don’t!” Cav’s heart lodges in his throat until it’s suffocating. There has to be a way to save her. To stop this. He scrambles for anything. “But I know where Heathen’s taking them!”
Tidus’s pupils spread like ink. “Tell me.”
Another strand of the rope snaps. Lyx’s body jolts closer to the water.
Cav doesn’t take his eyes off her. “Put out the fire.”
“Tell me!”
“She took them somewhere!” Cav grapples for anything to satisfy him. “An island on the outer reaches, the one with the old slipway. They say they’re taking it for maintenance, but Heathen only takes a skeleton crew. Always the same people. The rest of us don’t see her for days.”
The answer hangs in the air. Tidus gives nothing in response, mulling over the words until Cav wants to scream.
Finally, Tidus moves the candle away from the rope. “See?” he coos. “Was that so hard?”
Cav lets out a shaky breath.
“You could learn a thing or two from him,” Tidus calls to Lyx before he grins at Cav. “See, Lyx almost finished her job for me. She used you to get a spot on the ship. She snuck around behind your back. But she couldn’t wrap things up in a nice little bow.”
It doesn’t matter what Tidus says. What Lyx did. Relief washes over Cav, and he looks at Lyx to reassure her.
Her eyes stay wide with fear.
Tidus curls his hand around the rope and drags the broken shells of his hand against it. “So I will.”
The final strand snaps, and Lyx plunges into the water.