Chapter 22
The captain’s cabin sat in the stern of the ship. After three days in the dark cargo hold, I was surprised at the sprawl of it. Eight arched windows graced the wall ahead, set behind a wooden table that served as a study. Maps sat stacked on top of each other. A knife supplied itself as a paperweight in one corner, and a silver candle holder did the same for the opposite end, its candle thin and half gone, waxy drops hardened down the sides.
A bowl of fresh fruit and a roasted chicken claimed one side of the table, glazed and glistening. Three wine glasses waited next to a corked bottle.
I lunged for the knife, and Kye immediately snatched it out from under my hand. He tossed it into the corner of the room, where naval swords and armaments lined the wall, then pulled me in front of a chair, directly across from Thaan.
“Good afternoon,” Thaan drawled, all hollow cheeks and thin lips. His hair was somewhere between gray and the color of straw, and just as dull and lifeless. He’d tied it back in a low, unassuming braid, though his eyes pierced me with ice. My neck prickled so hard it felt like someone pinched me, and on instinct, I looked out the window at the water calmly stroking the docks below.
Behind us, the little man in spectacles slipped in through the door, books and scrolls under his arm. Standing only as tall as I did, he seemed small in comparison to Kye. Thin shoulders punctuated his wiry frame, his eyes hard and intelligent, though I still hadn’t heard him speak a word. Skirting out of our way, he sat in an unoccupied chair in the corner.
Thaan waited for him to settle, then turned to me, bringing his hands together to connect his fingertips. “Please sit,” he said, using his joined hands to indicate the chair directly behind me. Kye’s hands tightened painfully on my shoulder, and I obeyed before he shoved me again—though I immediately disliked having to look up at them both while they stood.
I didn’t enjoy how Thaan looked at me. As though I were something small and vulnerable. Easy prey. Like one of the axis deer that roamed the low mountains, eyes wide as it spotted a hunter across the clearing.
Except he wasn’t a hunter. I didn’t know exactly what he was.
“Where am I?” I demanded with a tone of confidence that didn’t match how I felt.
Though I added in enough of the outrage I did feel to make up the difference.
Thaan turned up his chin at me, dismissing my outburst. “My dear, you’re in the harbor of Calder City. You’ve been found guilty of witchcraft. By order of the King, you are to be set to flame tomorrow at sunrise.”
“What? I haven”t had a trial,” I said in disbelief.
“Your trial was held earlier this morning.”
I glanced at Kye without thinking. He’d moved to lean against the wall, arms crossed as he watched me, expressionless.
“How?” It felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me. “Shouldn’t I have been present at my own trial?”
“Witches do not have the right of appearance. It’s too dangerous. Someone was appointed for you. Witches are kept aboard ships, where they can’t harm civilians. That”s the law.”
“Who?” I asked in disbelief. “Who was appointed for me? My father?”
“No, no.” Thaan waved his hand callously in my direction. “A community orator, of course, along with a jury.”
“But I don’t know any orators.” How could someone I’d never met defend me? My breath came in thick, suffocating waves. I coughed once, then couldn’t stop. Bent over in the chair, my hands on my knees, I lost myself in a fit of hacking. The room might’ve been full of noxious gas for how thick the air became. I could almost taste it on my tongue, my eyes watering.
“Some water please, Cain,” Thaan said, unbothered by my display.
The smaller man adjusted his glasses, rose from out of his chair, and left the room, presumably heading down the stairs to the galley, his gaze securely fixed on his own feet. I cleared my throat. Blinking back heat, my eyes wandered the walls, determined not to look at either of them, though I could feel them staring at me. From my periphery, Thaan’s eyes flashed, almost changing colors, and then went back to normal. Listlessly pale blue, then frigid white.
Cain returned to the room with a copper pitcher and a glass. He poured for me and returned to his seat like a leaf in the wind, so quiet and small it remains forgotten until it blows in the way.
I took a drink of the water, setting the glass on the table and rotating it in one hand, watching it turn. “I don’t understand—”
“Well, it’s quite simple. Orators do a poor job of defending criminals. A shame.” Thaan tilted his head at me, feigned remorse in his gaze. Reading people was a skill I admittedly lacked, but I didn’t question the certainty in my gut that he didn’t concern himself with my well-being.
Defeat was easier to experience than it was to accept. Ugly reality swept the room. It commanded my focus, mocking me where I sat, and I sagged under its weight. Reality loves to prove everything else wrong, especially desperately gathered hope.
Nori and Olinne would wonder what had happened to me. And worse, I’d never see my father again. I swallowed a lump of shame. I wasn’t a witch, but he’d never know. He’d learn I was tried and found guilty, with no assurance otherwise.
What happened now? Would I go back to my cell for the night? Would Thaan bind me in chains and take me ashore? He watched me with a strange expression, waiting for the slow absorption of his words, the dawning clarity of my fate. There was no smile on his mouth, no amusement in his eyes, and at the same time, he harbored a look of satisfaction.
Like he was waiting for something from me. Like he wanted something from me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He stared at me, his expression cooler as the moments passed, frozen eyes piercing mine with alarm. I realized he’d anticipated me to be lost in grief and despair.
His lips twitched. A blur flew across my vision.
Wood cracked, and suddenly I was sprawled out on the floor. The back of my chair bit sideways into my shoulder, one of the legs snapped off. My ears rang. The wooden planks of the ceiling swirled together in a whirlpool above my head.
“How dare you,” he said.
I closed my eyes, willing the maelstrom to stop. My head continued to spin.
“You should be on your knees, begging for your life. You should be offering the world to me. Offering yourself, in any capacity, in any form, in any way I’d prefer. You should be groveling at my feet.”
I rubbed my temples, eyes squeezed shut. My cheek throbbed where he’d struck me with the flat of his palm, the stinging, metallic taste of blood slashed across my tongue—I’d bitten it.
“Who am I?” Thaan asked.
Kye watched, his mouth hard, eyes dark under the cabin light.
Thaan leaned forward across the table. “Who are you? Who are your mother and father? Where were you born? How did you come to live on the fishing island?”
Stars exploded silently across the back of my eyelids. I rolled off the chair’s backrest. Pulling myself onto my knees, I looked at the man through squinted eyes.
“Who are you?” I demanded, realizing through the rotating room that Thaan’s outrage was my only weapon. “I owe you nothing, and I need nothing from you. Burn me tomorrow if you need the same from me.”
I hadn’t expected him to laugh. He glared at first, furious, his mouth parted with incredulity. Then he closed it with a small smile that grew. He tilted his face forward, closing his eyes and shaking his head, and released a chuckle that was dangerously soft. The sound grated inside my ears.
“You stupid, stupid girl. You have no footing to demand information from me. Look at you. I owe you nothing.”
“Why am I here, then?” I asked, pulling my feet underneath me, the broken pieces of the wooden chair clattering against the floor as I stood. I gestured to the table. “Why have such a meal prepared for someone condemned to death? Why come to tell me personally of my fate? Couldn’t someone aboard the ship have passed on a simple message?”
“Keep going,” he said with a threatening smile. “I want to see what else you have worked out for yourself.”
My mouth snapped shut. Whether it had been a tactic to silence me or a true warning, I wasn’t sure, but I stood with arms crossed, glowering at him.
Thaan gazed at me with distaste. “I see you’re not one for wasting time. Expediency is a valuable skill, but in terms of negotiation, you lack patience, which is a personal disappointment. This situation might have unraveled differently, were you not so foolish. Do you want to hear my offer?”
“Obviously,” I sneered.
“Sit down. Answer my questions.” He stalked to a window and opened it, grabbing the plates of food and thrusting them out. I forced myself not to react to my punishment. The fruit—an apple, two oranges, and a heap of grapes, delved smoothly into the waves, but the lustrous, plump bird dropped with a splash. The scent of roasted chicken remained in the air.
My stomach lurched, and the lesson landed. I’d keep future speculations to myself.
We sat, though Kye remained where he was, leaning into the wall. My eyes roamed across the map on the table.
“I was born in Leihani. I grew up there,” I said icily. “My father raised me. I don’t know very much about my mother. She died when I was a baby.”
Thaan narrowed his eyes. “What was her name?”
“Alana.” I studied his face. Though he was calm, he radiated with cold intensity, as if suffering under the pressure to maintain his composure. I couldn”t understand what his anger had to do with me.
He rose slowly out of his chair, leaning over the table. “It was not. Don’t lie to me, stupid creature. What was her name?”
“That was her name. Why does it matter?”
We each sized the other. A dull ache pulsed through the back of my head, and when I closed my eyes, light flashed.
“Would you prefer a few months in the cargo hold?” Thaan said.
“Where’s my warrant?” I asked. “Where are the court documents that state my guilt? I’d like to see them.”
He looked me over, joining his fingertips together. Behind me, Cain coughed.
“I don’t have all day,” Thaan said. “Let’s clarify a few things. Your death warrant has been signed. When I declare it, you have mere hours to live. I need not show you a thing. If you believe you’ve caught me in some lie, you’re misguided. If you would like to hear the court findings, you are more than welcome to listen tomorrow, tied to a stake, before a civilian audience, but I must warn you, it will be too late to change your mind.”
He sat down again, meeting my burning gaze across the table.
“Your mother’s name is Alana—”
“Was.”
He remained quiet for a moment. “Was Alana. When did you transition? How old are you?”
I blinked. “Transition?”
Thaan said nothing.
“I’m twenty-two,” I said. “My birthday is in a week or two.”
”Or two? You do not know your birthday?”
My teeth clenched.
“Who performed the ritual on you?” he asked, so frustrated his lips barely moved.
I stared at him, hands open in confusion. “What do you mean? I’m not a witch.”
He frowned, tilting his head. Seconds passed, our quiet breathing the only sound blooming through the air. Behind me, a chair creaked. Kye still hadn’t moved. I resisted the urge to turn and look at him. Thaan held my gaze like a net, waiting for me to swim in and trap myself.
“You’re nota witch,” Thaan said slowly, tilting his head in the other direction. “Yet the island’s complaints of you contained specific witness accounts that are indicators of witchcraft.”
I hesitated, hands flat on the table. “I did kill my uncle,” I murmured, my chest tightening at the words. “He threatened me with a knife, and I somehow got it away from him.”
A flash of a knife.My fingers curled into the wooden table, bracing for impact. The sound of shattering ice. Sticky, warm blood under my hands...
I licked my lips nervously. “But I’m not a witch. I didn’t seduce anyone.”
“Yet, six men have disappeared from your island. Have they not?”
“Yes.”
“So, I ask you,” he said, his lips curling, “who performed the ritual?”
“I’ve never seduced a man,” I hissed.
“Are you quite dim? I”m not referring to incantation.” His eyes roamed over my face and clothes, taking in my hau bark skirt and tapa shirt, my bare shoulders, my dirty ankles. He moved toward me, and I stiffened as he took the long rope of my hair, draping it down past my collar. His hand curled around my chin, lifting it left and right as he studied me. My face itched under his touch.
From the corner of my eye, Kye had gone so still I wasn’t sure if he was breathing.
“So, the six missing sailors just happento be coincidence?” Thaan asked slowly. “And you’ve never incanted anyone? Never hypnotized or charmed a man?”
Body rigid with anger, I turned my head, freeing myself from his fingertips. His nails dug into my jaw, but he allowed me to smoothly wrench away. I fixed him with a scorching stare. “I don’t know what happened to them.”
“And you’ve never transitioned?” he asked. I said nothing. Near the limit of my patience, I could only glare.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” Thaan asked. A dark smile curved his mouth, but he quickly dropped it. “Let”s try something else. What Naiads do you know?”
My mind briefly went blank before the flare of a new wick ignited. Naiads.
“Nori and Olinne,” I breathed, eyes wide. Instinctively, I felt the side of my neck, where the welts from Nori’s nails had since healed.
“Ahh,” Thaan said, smiling. “They failed to explain it to you. Because you’re human-born, I assume.”
His eyes veered across my face, understanding flashing behind his pale eyes. I seethed at his obvious amusement, having lost my grip on whatever game we’d been playing.
“Explain what?” I demanded, though internally I listened, rapt with focus on every word.
“And they never finished it. They didn’t complete the ritual. You’re stuck in the in between.” He watched me, smug. Satisfied.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you thirsty, Maren? Is your throat dry? Do take a drink.” He gestured to the copper pitcher, offering to refill my glass.
“I”m not thirsty.” I was thirsty. I’d been thirsty for a week.
He offered me a tight smile. “I can save you. Contractually, of course. I can write it all out, and we can sign it in blood.”
I stared at him, unsure what the right answer might be.
He tapped his fingertips together. “Do you want to burn tomorrow?”
“No,” I said obstinately.
“Good. In that case, are you willing to sign a contract?”
No,I thought. Inhaling deeply, I tasted the salty sea air. Outside, the sun shone on the water.
A contract. That meant writing my name. I knew how to spell my name, but I”d never signed anything. “What does it say?” I asked slowly.
Thaan didn’t answer me. Instead, he lifted his head, lending his attention to Kye.
Belatedly, I followed.
Still leaning into the wall, Kye’s golden gaze met mine. A smile curved into the side of his cheek, a single dimple fleshing out from the side. His dark hair, still mussed from the wind, fell across his eyes, his shoulders relaxed even as the outline of his muscular shape pressed through the fabric of his black jacket.
Arms crossed, he looped one ankle in front of the other.
“It states your cooperation with a few things,” Kye said, his tone dripping with boredom. “Namely, that you’ll enter Calder willingly. As my future bride.”